Tribute to Caesar 2 - Matt 22:20; Mark 12:16; Luke 20:24

The second point come in Jesus’ answer, or rather his question back to the Pharisees and Herodians. He asks, “Whose image and superscription hath it?” He’s asking whose picture and motto is on the money that they handed him. If we follow the same logic of “whose name is on the church? Then that’s whose church it is,” we can deduce that if Caesar’s face and logo is on the money, then the money belongs to him. The article cited yesterday from lewrockwell.com says, “because the hostile question was a direct challenge to Jesus’ authority as a rabbi on a point of law, His interrogators would have expected a counter-question grounded in scripture, in particular, based upon the Torah. Two words, ‘image’ and ‘inscription,’ in the counter-question harkens to two central provisions in the Torah, the First (Second) Commandment and the Shema. These provide the scriptural basis for this question of law.” This seems pretty complicated, and considering that this encounter was 2,000 years ago, I think that we’re doing pretty well keeping up.

When the woman taken in adultery was brought to Jesus for judgment, we learned that there was a certain legal protocol in place to handle such offenses, and that those who accused her didn’t follow them. We also learned that Jesus was well aware of the legal requirements for such an accusation and performed the protocol properly by writing in the dust on the ground, and asking questions. It might not make sense to us today, but that’s what was required at the time, and Jesus was an adherent to justice and procedure. We can see that here in this instance as well, because these people came to him and basically said, “we know that you’re going to answer our questions based on scripture, or else you aren’t really teaching the laws of God.” Because Jesus had preached a higher law growing out of the law of Moses, it might have been safe for them to assume that he might answer with something “crazy” so they were setting the terms.

Jesus gives an answer based on the Torah by using the work “image.” Here he references the commandment “thou shalt not have any graven images.” In fact, some Jews considered this coinage with Caesar’s picture to be a graven image, and also deification of a pagan, child molesting, murderer. Which brings up another issue that the people who so ready provided Jesus a tribute coin, could in fact be held guilt of breaking the second commandment because they carried this graven image into the temple grounds where Jesus was teaching. The article points out , “Tiberius even made it a capital crime to carry any coin stamped with his image into a bathroom or a brothel.” If the emperor Tiberius was concerned enough about his image being taken to disreputable places, then surely the true and living God of Israel would object to this false idol being taken into his only house, the temple.

I wonder if the big problem with us relating to this concept would be the fact that all of our currency have people’s pictures on them. There is also the matter of it being so small that it can be carried in your pocket, and that you can buy things with it. If we were to take some of those factors and change them, would it be more relatable? What if instead of little coins with pictures on them, they were dealing with large tiki heads that weren’t worth anything. They would be too large to carry in your pocket, so they would have to be mounted somewhere. That connects something like money with a face on it to something as awful as a golden calf, if there’s one then there’s the other.

Interestingly, when Pilate took over as the Roman ruler in Jerusalem, he had Roman statues and busts put up all over the city, even though his predecessors had respect the wishes of the Jewish people and refrained in order to keep the peace. I believe I first read about it in “The Kingdom and the Crown,” which described the incident as the Jewish people asking for the statues to be removed, and in response, Pilate gathered the people into the open space of the city, surrounded them with soldiers and threatened to kill anyone who didn’t accept the statues. According to this book, which is a historical fiction by the way, all the Jews laid down and stretched their necks out so that their heads could be cut off. Wikipedia describes the incident saying, “Pilate had his soldiers surround the demonstrators, threatening them with death, which they were will to accept rather than submit to desecration of the Mosaic law. Pilate finally removed the images.”

I’m not of the opinion that money with pictures on it is worshiping graven images, but then again, our money has dead people on it. When I was in Iraq with the initial invasion in 2003, we came across a lot of Iraqi currency and all the bills had Saddam Hussein’s picture on them. I read in the article from yesterday about the role of currency as propaganda in conquered nations. Looking at Saddam Hussein’s money, honestly, having a picture of a living person on the bills was pretty creepy. There was a sense of “he’s always watching you,” and “he’s all powerful.” Because if we think about it, money is what you use to buy clothes, food and shelter, the basic necessities of life, and if there is a picture of a person in power on the money, there’s a definite message of “this person has power over your life and death.”