[EdwinSm]

The Easter story has Judas receiving 30 pieces of silver for betraying Jesus. At the time that was equal to the value of a slave (or at least that is the value placed on a slave in what some call the Old Testament).

What would 30 pieces of silver buy today? Or what might it buy in a time of sever disruption? (You can choose the size of the silver coin for your answer.)

[Tanada]

30 pieces of silver was about a years wages for a skilled workman like a carpenter, blacksmith or cabinet maker. In my part of Ohio that would work out to about $65,000.00 cash, and as a payoff it was tax free at least in the short term.

Today you could buy a modest house in a older neighborhood for that cash money. Say something from 1947 that has been maintained but doesn't have a lot of updates like a new kitchen and new bathroom and additional electric outlets added to all the rooms for our much more electrified lifestyle today.

Or you could buy several economy cars or one very nice work truck if you had a reason to own either.

Or if you are interested in such you could buy illicit things like party drugs and prostitutes. A lot of them.

Or you could combine your housing and transportation by buying a houseboat or a small RV.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '3')0 pieces of silver ... would work out to about $65,000.00 cash

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '3')0 pieces of silver ... would work out to about $65,000.00 cash

[Rod_Cloutier]

A message of the love of God for this Easter Sunday:

https://youtu.be/FVe1-IgKefo?t=1s

Part 2: https://youtu.be/dUDTLhvPCVg?t=1s

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Subjectivist', '.')... Perhaps your remaining silver will save your life when the Centurians come to arrest you.

[MD]

The core message is that there will always be some who are willing to sell their ethics for comfort. Short term thinkers. Too many of them. On some days I am one of them. Step one.

[SeaGypsy]

The most interesting version of Easter i found was in the Nag Hamadi Scrolls- James, Peter & the two Mary's all disagreeing on the nature of the so called 'resurrection'. This was in 1 AD, the people closest to Him couldn't agree what happened. Amazing, somehow all Christendom came to agree.

[sparky]

.
......the value of 30 pieces of silver
Judas returned the money to the Temple before hanging himself
" Deeming it as blood money, and therefore illegal to put into their treasury, they used it instead to buy the field as a burial ground for foreigners: thus the place gained the name "the Field of Blood"
the alternate name is the potter field
it was an old clay quarry used by the local potter's , the ground was mostly red clay
that is the price of an acre of suburban land unsuitable for farming
the location was in the valley of Gei ben Hinnom ( Hinnon sons ) better known as Gehenna
" This valley is mentioned five times in the Book of Jeremiah (7:31,32 19:2,6 32:35)
as the place in which the people would "burn their sons and daughters in the fire" in the worship of Moloch

[Cog]

Pilate wasn't all the excited about killing Jesus. It was the Sanhedrin and the High priest who had a real itch to get rid of him. But either way Jesus knew he was going to die and it was for that reason he was born to begin with. If Judas hadn't betrayed him it would have still happened in some other way.

[evilgenius]

The betrayal is a means for God to ensure the Passover timing of the death and resurrection. It's a way for Him to speed up things. This way they happen during the festival. In true God fashion, though, he leaves Judas unaware of the knowledge of what he is really doing. This way God can still say that the manner by which He sped things up was still random enough not to be called interference in the natural order of things, which was one of the legs that trans-subtantialists argue is necessary for the death of Christ to have life giving power, toward eternal life. This predisposes some Satan as antagonist, going far back in historic rivalry. A being from whose ownership redemption had to be paid.

You can flip this on its head. Replace Satan with man. Not man as individual man, and not even collective man, but man as a being with purpose. Fallen man in that state is just a selfish brute toward both his neighbors and his God. Then, isn't the Christ story as much about confronting one's inner demons (repenting), in order to understand one's weaknesses today. Leaving aside judgement, which you discover does block the real work of God in your life. Then you can start over, so to speak. If you took judgement with you, that would only be repeating the same thing over again, making the world in your own image. Instead you can take advantage of living the kind of life you were intended to have, the one that is part of the kingdom of heaven.

That being said, the more interesting thing may be the number of coins. Thirty seems like a great number. If we imagine having to carry all of those coins at once we would have to carry around some tremendous coin bag. You can imagine using them to settle big purchases, during those times when silver had enough value to mean something. Periods do happen when economics dictates that silver is worth relatively little. That wasn't true of Judas time, though. Thirty coins might equal three hundred coins today, if intended purchasing power is considered. Alas, poor silver, your legacy is tarnished. Interesting that, isn't it, that Judas would accept not only money in order to betray Jesus, but precisely a type of money that would tell such a poisoned story when viewed against engaging in commerce over hoarding. He got thirty big decisions paid for. Judas may have been budgeting for just so many, maybe ten to fifteen, to get away from this place in his life. After seeing what he had done, betraying Jesus for the remaining ten to fifteen might not have sounded so good now. He couldn't get far enough away, even on thirty big decisions. He could see where this was going. So, yeah, thirty sounds enough, until you begin to use them.

[sparky]

.
there are conjecture that Judah , the most beloved of the apostles ,
wanted to create a crisis to force the hand of Jesus
leading him to used people power and claim his rightful role as king of the Jews .
that's would be why his despair was complete ,

[evilgenius]

And there is another overlooked parallel at work in the representation of Judas. He is much like Gehazi, Elisha's servant who went riding after Namaan and asked for money. Gehazi was given two talents of silver and two changes of garments by Namaan, when he thought that Elisha was after all going to accept some kind of payment in return for healing him. In return for deceiving Namaan and taking money in Elisha's name Gehazi was afflicted with Namaan's leprosy.

The Judas story is also a warning about the efficacy of money in terms of the work. Doing it to get rich will only lead to a figurative death. The early church was very different from the institutional ones that supplanted it, especially when it came to the role of money. The story of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts also illustrates the threat to the spiritual energy presented by the love of money. It causes a conflating that isn't helpful. Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God, don't treat them so similarly that you can freely exchange one for the other. That's how you lose sight of your purpose. Money will help settle disputes, alright, but it is not so good at providing purpose at a level people can dedicate their lives to. Or, again, do you do good works out of the abundance of your heart, or because it is your job?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'R')ender unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God, don't treat them so similarly that you can freely exchange one for the other.

[SeaGypsy]

Believing the bible is a version of the same thing.

[sparky]

.
Orthodox also see no conflict between God and the ruler ,
by the very definition the ruler is God's agent with moral authority in Church matter

the split in the west came from the conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor and the pope Hildebrand
he even had the Emperor waiting outside in the snow on his knees for forgiveness .

[dissident]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sparky', '.')
Orthodox also see no conflict between God and the ruler ,
by the very definition the ruler is God's agent with moral authority in Church matter

the split in the west came from the conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor and the pope Hildebrand
he even had the Emperor waiting outside in the snow on his knees for forgiveness .

[evilgenius]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'R')ender unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God, don't treat them so similarly that you can freely exchange one for the other.

[SeaGypsy]

I would argue that the removal of Sanctity of the State is fundamental to progress, since the State always seeks to perpetuate itself above all other interests, including the interests of progress. The almost accident of western Christianity melding elements of secularism does not undo the fact of what is written in the Holy Books- God gave the authority to the rulers.

In reference to Ananias & Saphira in the book Acts, I read this as more to do with relative strength of faith in the early days of Messianic Judaism (the Christian Church) as compared to the present, where gross indecency of all description does not result in the sort of demise meted out to these two believers.