Whether it is the exact type or even denomination referenced in the bible isn't too relevant to me as I am here for the coins not a bible study... I'm more likely to get annoyed by situations where speculation or misattributions obscure facts relevant to the coins ("the portrait on the Blasio issue is Scipio Africanus!!!!").
But as an aside, is anything known on when was the connection between this coin and the bible story made? Does it come up in Eckhel, for instance?
Steve
The
Tribute Penny ID is not mentioned in
Eckhel, or in any other early numismatic
work that I can recall, doubtless because these works concentrated on the chronology of the coinage and the explication of the
types and legends, not on where the coins circulated and identifying the coins meant whenever the Bible or another ancient literary
work mentioned a coin.
However, the question of what coin was handed to Jesus certainly did arise centuries ago, and I presume that the
PONTIF MAXIM denarius of
Tiberius must have been one of the favorite candidates right from the start!
Rasche's Lexicon of Ancient Coinage, c. 1790, article
Census, refers to the following treatises on the question, all in Latin, none of which I have read or
had even heard of:
Marq.
Freherus, A treatise on the
census coin that the Pharisees asked about, date not given.
Hermanson, A treatise on the
denarius of the
census [i.e. the
Tribute Penny], 1733.
Io. Lor. Moschem, Observations on the story of the
census coin, 1725.
Io. Nic. Schulin, A treatise on the
census coin, 1685.