Two leptons were worth one quadrans, the least valuable Roman coin. At the time of Jesus, the lepton was the circulating coin worth the very least. It was a tiny coin smaller than a fingertip. The lepton, worth half of a prutah, was also minted by King Alexander Janneaus. King Alexander Janneaus died in 76 B.C., well before Jesus was born, but his coins were still freely circulating. This coin, minted in very large quantities, featured royal inscriptions in Hebrew and Greek with an anchor on the obverse and an 8-pointed star on the reverse. The common prutah was struck during the reign of King Alexander Janneaus. The most likely coins would have been either leptons or prutot minted under the Hasmonean rulership of Judea between 135 B.C. In fact, the two “mites” could have been two different kinds of coins. There were many small bronze coins in circulation at that time in Judea that Jesus could have been referring to. The Bible does not specify any type of coin. What kinds of small coins were circulating in the Holy Land during Jesus’s day? This is obviously a very small coin denomination. Perhaps a better question is: What was a mite? Other translations of this text substitute the words “two small copper coins, which make a penny” for the word mites. In contrast, the widow gave hers in faith and with care, and she is remembered by history. The rich people in the story give far more, but they are not praised because their gifts are not sacrificial. So He said, ‘Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.’”Ĭlearly, the biblical point of this story is to demonstrate the value of generosity, even when the amount is small and to point out that God does not value things the same way that man does. “And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. The gospel writer Luke relates the story like this (New King James Version): Luke’s Gospel Account of the Widow’s Mite If you’ve ever wondered what coins the widow’s mites were and what their value was, read on. In it Jesus praises a widow for her generosity in giving all she had even though the financial value of her contribution was not large. This story is related in both Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4. Readers familiar with the gospels may know the story of the widow’s mite.
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