|
by
Doug Ward |
In the United States, springtime is "tax season."
Tax forms must be filed, and income taxes paid, by April 15.
In a
sense, springtime was also tax season in the days of Jesus of Nazareth. During the
late Second Temple period, adult male Jews were expected to pay half a shekel
(or two drachmas) each year in support of the sacrifices at the Temple. For
people who did not live in Jerusalem, collection of this Temple tax began on
Adar 15, a month before Passover.
The
scriptural basis for the Temple tax is found in Exod 30:11-16; 38:21-31. During
the time of the construction of Israel's tabernacle in the wilderness, each
adult male contributed half a shekel. This collection financed the service of
the tabernacle and also provided a count of the adult male population. Counting
the people normally could be dangerous, because a census potentially could
cause the Israelites to become proud of their numbers and turn their hearts
away from God. However, the donations that accompanied this census expressed
gratitude to God and reminded Israel of its true source of strength, thus
protecting the nation from the plagues that might otherwise result from a
census (Exod 30:12; 2 Sam 24).
Six
hundred years later, Exodus 30 was invoked by King Joash of Judah to raise
funds for the repair of Solomon's Temple (2 Chron 24:4-16). Then after the
Babylonian exile, an annual tax of one-third shekel was instituted to fund the
activities of the rebuilt Temple (Neh 10:32-33). The amount later was raised to
one-half shekel.
|
A
Question for Peter and Jesus |
Not everyone in first-century Israel agreed that a permanent annual
tax was a legitimate application of Exodus 30. For example, one Dead Sea
Scrolls fragment (4Q159) says that each man should be required to pay the half
shekel only once in a lifetime. A drachma or denarius was about a day's wage
for a laborer (see Matt 20:2), so a two-drachma tax was a nontrivial sum,
especially for people who already paid tithes and faced a heavy tax burden
imposed by Rome.
The
controversial nature of the Temple tax may help explain an incident recorded in
the Gospel of Matthew the tax collector. Once when Jesus and his disciples were
coming to Capernaum, Peter was asked by local collectors of the tax, "Does
your teacher not pay the tax?" Peter answered, "Yes, he does"
(Matt 17:24-25).
Later
Jesus discussed the Temple tax with Peter by means of a short parable:
" `What do think, Simon? From whom do kings of the
earth take toll or tax? From sons or from others?' And when he said, `From
others,' Jesus said to him, `Then the sons are free.' " (vv. 25-26).
In
this parable the "kings of the earth" are parents as well as rulers.
When they levy taxes upon their subjects, their own children are exempt from
these requirements.
As
in later rabbinic parables, the kings in Jesus' parable represent God, who is
"king over all the earth" (Exod 15:18) and also father of the nation
of Israel, his "firstborn son" (Exod 4:22-23). Just as the kings of the
earth do not tax their own children, so God would not tax his people.1
Jesus was saying, then, that the two-drachma payment should not be a
requirement.
Why
did Jesus oppose the tax? It was designed for a seemingly worthwhile purpose-to
give the whole nation an opportunity to show solidarity with the Temple and
participate in its worship-and those who could easily afford the tax paid it
enthusiastically. For the poor, on the other hand, it added to an already
excessive tax burden. The high priestly families of that era, supported by the
Temple tax, grew wealthy, and their conspicuous wealth was a painful reminder
of the tax. So was the presence of the Temple moneychangers, who converted
other money into the silver shekel coins with which the tax had to be paid. All of this affected the way people
viewed God, since the tax was understood to be divinely imposed.
All
in all, then, the Temple tax fundamentally misrepresented God, portraying him
as a despotic ruler rather than a loving Father. As New Testament scholar
Richard Bauckham observes, "By making the Temple worship a pretext for
financial exaction in God's name, the tax distorted the whole character of the
worship of God for which the Temple existed."2
No wonder Jesus judged the Temple tax to be illegitimate and overturned the
tables of the moneychangers (Matt 21:12-13).
|
Paying
the Tax |
Even though Jesus argued that the tax should not be mandatory, he
directed Peter to make a payment for them so as not to offend the local
collectors (v. 27). Those who collected the tax at Capernaum were not part of a
corrupt Temple establishment; rather, they may well have been motivated by a
love for the Temple and its worship. His failing to pay the tax might have
given them the mistaken impression that he opposed the Temple itself.
To
obtain a shekel for the payment, Peter was to go fishing at the Sea of Galilee.
The first fish Peter caught, Jesus said, would have a silver shekel in its
mouth. Here Jesus was not showing off his prowess as a miracle worker. Instead,
he was reinforcing the point of his parable. While the tax portrayed God as a
harsh ruler, the miracle sent the message that God is a loving father who
provides for the needs of his people.3
Jesus'
consideration for the collectors of the tax also sends another important
message. Although Jesus is the divine Messiah (Matt 16:16) and God's beloved
Son (Matt 17:5), he is also a servant who humbly laid down his life for us all
(17:22-23). He calls his disciples to follow his example of humility (18:3-4).
1Interpreting the
"sons" in the parable to be the people of Israel is consistent with
the way the imagery of "children" is used elsewhere in Matthew-e.g.,
Matt 15:26; 8:12.
2"The Coin in the
Fish's Mouth," pp. 219-252 in Gospel Perspectives, Volume 6: The
Miracles of Jesus, David Wenham and Craig Blomberg, editors, JSOT Press,
Sheffield, England, 1986.
3See
"The Coin in the Fish's Mouth", p. 224.
File
translated from TEX by TTH,
version 3.66.
On 18 Feb 2015, 13:51.
