The Philosophy of Money in Early Judaism (500 BCE–100 CE)

Coin money was introduced to the inhabitants of Judaea by the Achaemenid empire (fourth century BCE), concurrently with the writing of the later books of the Hebrew Bible. The introduction of coin money prompted shifts in the way the Judaeans interacted with the divine, understood their place in the world, and read their scriptures. In this chapter I survey the ways in which ancient Jews interacted with coin money, as reflected by the literature they produced in Hebrew and in Greek from the Achaemenid period until around the year 200, including the earliest Christian literature. I begin with a historical discussion of the introduction of coin money into the Levant. Then I turn to a discussion of various properties of money reflected in ancient Jewish literature: how humans can use money to interact with the divine; the intangible things which are like money, such as virtue and scholarship; the relationship between money and personhood; the stability of money; the mental and spiritual effects of the desire for money; and the moral charge money can carry. I end with a discussion of a novel and developed theory of wealth found in a work from Qumran known as 4QInstruction or the Wisdom of Raz-Nihiyeh.