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Originally Posted by Shoonra
I cannot fathom why you try to connect FRNs to a Biblical story.
The Herodians, being attached to Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, had little or no authority in Jerusalem. It was Romans who attempted to post an eagle at the Temple and this was bitterly resisted by the Jews, as was an attempt to post blank Roman shields.
I do not know if the Romans tried to tax the Temple activities. In any case, the selling of animals for sacrifice and the recycling of the old half-shekel coins were done to facilitate Jewish requirements for the Passover.
Seleucius may have subsidized the Temple in the period covered by Second Maccabees, but the event in the NT came long after Seleucius was dead, and the Romans had taken over.
It is, perhaps, worth mentioning that Jesus was born in a stable precisely because His parents were complying with a Roman tax that required an ancestral census. (By the way, this sort of return to ancestral homes for a Roman census or tax gathering is not mentioned in any other source.)
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I think Shoonra argues mostly for argument's sake.
The Romans were allowing the Jewish practice. It was the Herodians who were a resident Roman marshal supervising the appeasement. Herod was but a Roman puppet.
And the precedent is set long before Christ. Look at that admission by Shoonra. If the priests are using any currency for the Temple expenses, it is ludicrous to demand domestic currency for the Temple tax. I think that is pretty simple for the Readers to understand.
Thank you for making that clearer though, Shoonra.
Regards,
David Merrill.