About This Website

Ancient Biblical Coins: Touch points to history & faith

This recently birthed website is a work in progress. It has a long way to go, including 400 more coins which will be added in approximate chronological order (oldest to newest). Please feel free to check the progress. 🙂

This website presents a collection of coins which serve as numismatic illustrations toward the combination of three overarching themes: (1) Biblical history, (2) History of governmental control over the geographical area now commonly termed the Holy Land, and (3) Christianity’s precursors, origin, and continuance.  Each coin provides a tangible connection to the ancient places in which they were produced and circulated, the rulers who issued them, the people who earned and spent them, and events that occurred around them as they circulated. 

These coins can make well-known names such as Nehemiah and Ezra, Herod the Great and Herod Antipas, Caesar Augustus and Pilate, Festus and Felix, Jesus and Paul, Nero and Domitian become more than just names from the past. Events likewise become more than just words on a page – including the Decree of Cyrus, Christ’s birth and the Magi, the Crucifixion and Judas’ betrayal, Jesus’ over-turning of the money changer’s table, the siege of Jerusalem and subsequent destruction of the Temple, certain narratives and parables in the New Testament, the Christian persecutions, the Roman Empire’s acceptance of Christianity under Constantine the Great, and more.

From this collection’s humble beginning over a quarter-century ago, the lens through which it has been envisioned centers on the Christian faith and its distinctly Jewish roots. As a result the great majority of coins within the collection may be viewed as decidedly pointing toward Judeo-Christian faith and/or history in some aspect. In the process of this collection’s demonstration of Christianity’s expansion from Judaea outward throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, it also includes coins which reflect belief systems such as Ba’al worship, Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Paganism, Secularism, cultic emperor worship, Zoroastrianism, and Islam. Because of all the above, each coin serves a purpose within the overarching themes of this biblical coin collection as a whole.

In a sense these ancient coins are time-travelers. They have journeyed through centuries into the present, and their weaving through time will continue beyond this collector’s death. Further, each coin’s extant presence allows it to serve as herald to those who take time to study, understand, and appreciably take note of the information they contain. Despite the extreme age and small size of the coins, they display for us today powerful religious and political messages, strong ruler portraits. proud titles, a broad spectrum of cultural norms, and the pointed priorities of those who designed and authorized their issuance.

“Numismatics is the window through which I look out on the past.” – Derek Fortrose Allen, 1910-1975. (Now deceased British numismatist and archaeologist, and Assistant Keeper in the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum.)

“Since their invention in the seventh century BCE in Western Asia Minor, circulating coins have often been the ultimate preserved documents, indicating sovereignty and defining an independent nation. Because of overriding economic utility, the communication of political-propaganda values of circulating coins are often overlooked. This importance should not be underestimated…” – David Hendin (Well-known expert in coinage and weights of the Holy Land, especially Judaean and biblical. Among multiple other books and research articles he is author of Guide to Biblical Coins, now in its fifth edition, which is found on the bookshelf of most every ancient biblical coin collector.)

“Coins cannot compare with literary sources in revealing the complexity of intentions and shifting sands of allegiance which make up political life, but they do have several advantages for the historian. …they generally present the official line… provide an important supplement to an often-meager body of surviving official literature and monuments… offer a much more continuous chronological and geographical coverage… are a strictly contemporary source, lacking the disadvantages (and advantages) of the element of retrospect characteristic, for example, of historical writing.” – Christopher Howgego (Keeper of the Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean Museum, Professor of Greek & Roman Numismatics, and has written widely on Roman coinage and history, including Ancient History From Coins.)