The tribute penny was the coin that was shown to Jesus when he made his famous speech “Render unto Caesar...” The phrase comes from the King James Version of the gospel account: Jesus is asked, “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” (Mark 12:14) and he replies, “bring me a penny, that I may see it” (Mark 12:15).
The Greek text uses the word dēnarion, and it is usually thought that the coin was a Roman denarius with the head of Tiberius. It is this coin that is sold and collected as the “tribute penny,” and the Gospel story is an important factor in making this coin attractive to collectors. The inscription reads “Ti[berivs] Caesar Divi Avg[vsti] F[ilivs] Avgvstvs” (“Caesar Augustus Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus”), claiming that Augustus was a god. The reverse shows a seated female, usually identified as Livia depicted as Pax.
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Author: Wikipedia
Keywords: Tribute penny, Denarius, Roman denarius, Roman coin, Coin, Roman coinage, Penny, Tribute money, Render unto Caesar, Things that are Caesars, denarii
Bible reference(s): Matthew 22:19-21, Mark 12:15-17, Luke 20:24-25
Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Tribute penny,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.