Julian Ungar-Sargon

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Daf Ditty

A wide-ranging commentary on the daily page of Talmud.

Shekalim 10: Temple Tax

jyungar March 31, 2021

For the source text click/tap here: Shekalim 10

To download, click/tap here: PDF

The fourth perek of Massekhet Shekalim, which begins on our daf opens with the question of how the shekalim are spent. We have already noted that the communal sacrifices were purchased with this money, but there were other needs in the Temple and in Jerusalem that were paid for with these donations.

After the return under Nehemiah, Jews in the Diaspora continued to pay the Temple tax. Josephus reported that at the end of the 30s CE "many tens of thousands" of Babylonian Jews guarded the convoy taking the tax to Jerusalem (Ant. 18.313).

This leads us to the historical evidence regarding Pointius Pilate's looting of the temple treasury from the perspective of Josephus vs the NT.

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Julian Ungar-Sargon

This is Julian Ungar-Sargon's personal website. It contains poems, essays, and podcasts for the spiritual seeker and interdisciplinary aficionado.​