Denaro sacro nell’Antico Testamento

Le componenti filologiche, culturali e teologiche di un’attribuzione non accessoria

Abstract

First published in Il Dio denaro. Una storia teologico-politica della moneta («Politica e Religione», 2018), pp. 13-45. 

Old Testament texts – obviously – do not deal explicitly with economics and money; however, we can draw from them meaningful data to verify how economy and religion influence each other and how the divinization of money can be understood in its own terms. For this purpose, we first give an outline of the economy of ancient Israel before the exile, and explain how the economy of the Persian period contributed to the formation of a new identity for the Jewish society. Secondly, we highlight the semantic changes which are typical of the language of economy and money, and thanks to which money may also be considered as god. In this sense, money is divinized not in itself, but only metaphorically. As a consequence, the local coins of the province of Yehud strengthened in some way the religious cohesion of the Jewish group. Finally, some considerations on the divinization and (therefore) demonization of money conclude the overview.