Robert said
Sorry, forgot to provide the link to ** you do not have permission to see this link **. The link to Zeichmann’s article is in the 5th post.

Robert said

If you want to discuss the dating of Mark’s gospel and to what extent this is based on the interpretation of the certainty of the temple’s destruction, I would suggest ** you do not have permission to see this link **, particularly Aractus’ reference to CB Zeichmann’s 2017 article on one consideration regarding the date of Mark’s Gospel apart from the Temple and Rumors of War …

But the question I asked you was much more general: Do you ever wonder why so many very intelligent and highly trained scholars are almost unanimous in coming to very different conclusions than you?  

  

The article makes the admission in the abstract that there is a “heavy reliance on Mark’s ambiguous temple-and-war passages”

The article also confuses arguments against the historicity of the story with arguments for a pre-70 dating of Mark being anachronistic. That is, if denarii, though rare, existed in Judea pre-70 they can appear in gospels written pre-70. Especially if they’re needed to make an interesting pericope.

Josephus tells us that Judas of Galilee led resistance to the new tax the Romans initiated under Quirinus, beginning the fourth philosophy which Josephus claims was one of the causes of the war. He tells us of no resistance to the Fiscus Judaicus. So the story of the pharisees trying to trap Jesus with questions on the payment of taxes to caesar better fits the historical setting pre-70.

But we know there was dissension to the paying of taxes to Romans before 70, we don’t know that about the fiscus judaicus.

The method of payment has a bearing on the historicity of the pericope, not on the date of writing; same with the rarity of denarii in Judea/Galilee. Jesus need never have seen nor heard of a denarius for a writer in Antioch or Rome, writing in 40s, 50s, 60s, to claim that he had. Taxes would get paid in whatever was available – no one will refuse payment in denarii.

Mark also says the bread would cost 200 denarii in chapter 6 and the perfume costs 300 denarii in chapter 14. More than what’s found in Galilee/Judea between 69 and 135 according to the paper. So we can’t put Mark’s use of denarii here down to a new post-war tax nor an increase in denarii supply. If he uses denarius in these instances for reasons other than what’s claimed in the paper we should conclude he is using denarius in chapter 12 for the same reason (That is, nothing to do with being post-war).

Robert said
You seriously do not think there was resentment and resistance to the fiscus iudaicus? Isn’t there always resistance to increased taxation? Why was the nonpayment prosecuted? And its prosecution even said to be malicious by later Roman reformers? This was a tax that was previously expected by God only from male adults and paid in support of the temple in Jerusalem for the worship of the Jewish God, but which is now extended by the Roman emperor to women and children and now paid for the support of a temple dedicated to the worship of Jupiter? Sure, the Jews would have been just fine with this. What caused the subsequent tumultus iudaicus, the additional uprisings in 115 and 132?

Why are you distinguishing between historicity of an earlier event and the date of a later practice? Aren’t they inextricably linked?

And why are you still avoiding the issue of how taxes were paid in Judea, ie, with produce or with money? That seems to me to be the central issue.

  

What I mean is there was incitement to rebellion through non-paying of tax by Judas of Galilee before the war. A semi-autonomous nation wondering if it should risk destruction by refusing to pay tax seems to fit better than account in the gospel. But the Fiscus Judaicus was levied on individuals and the question was whether a person should hide their Jewishness so as to avoid payment. The harsh enforcement by Domitian was relaxed by Nerva before 115. Its a tax to Caesar that’s being discussed not a levy to pay for a temple.

If the account in Mark had Jesus simply paying taxes with two denarii as some historic anecdote then going by the logic of Zeichmann we might conclude that the story likely originates from after the war. But the account exists only to to illustrate a moral argument. It doesn’t matter if its historical. Just so long as people have heard of a denarius, and know what’s stamped on it, the story can be written at any time between 30 and 70. The increase in usage after the war doesn’t increase the chance of the moral argument being made. Its a clever illustration of an argument at any time.

In the paper Zeichmann says that the land tax imposed on Judea was usually paid in produce but in an emergency was collected in coin. The reference from Josephus is

“To which Agrippa replied, That “what they had already done was like such as make war against the Romans; for you have not paid the tribute which is due to Cæsar” … the rulers also and senators divided themselves into the villages, and collected the tributes, and soon got together forty talents, which was the sum that was deficient. And thus did Agrippa then put a stop to that war which was threatened”  – Jewish Wars 2 17.5 to 18.1

The deficient sum was valued at 40 talents. Nothing about that suggests it was normally paid in produce or that this was only collected in coin as an emergency. Denarii or any silver would always have been accepted as payment of tax.