4. "Daric" In The Time Of David?
Does Smith's evangelical Christian tour of the British Museum really look "... at all the biblical evidence ..." in relation to Jewish coinage? Given his cobweb of faulty assumptions and factually incorrect statements noted so far with regard to the dirham, let us now take the opportunity to discuss certain aspects of the Hebrew Bible in relation to Jewish coinage.
It is quite well-known that the author-composers of various books of the Old Testament were not eye-witnesses. They composed the books hundreds of years after the actual events and narrated the stories with terms that were popular in their own day to help the readers understand the events of the past. Such a colouring of the stories has resulted in quite a few anachronisms in the Old Testament, such as the mention of the ruler of Egypt as "Pharaoh" during the time of Abraham and Joseph, when no Pharaohs existed in their times! Another example is the mention of the name "Potiphar" in the time of Joseph. The earliest attestation of the name "Potiphar" in Egypt post-dates both Joseph and Moses and it comes from the 21st Dynasty of the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070 – 946 BCE) in ancient Egypt. Since we are dealing with coins, it is worthwhile saying something about the mention of "daric" in the time of David in 1 Chronicles 29:7. In 1 Chronicles 29, David was asking an assembly of people to donate for the construction of the Temple. The people gave generously "toward the work on the temple of God five thousand talents and ten thousand darics of gold, ten thousand talents of silver, eighteen thousand talents of bronze and a hundred thousand talents of iron."
According to the chronology of the Old Testament, David's reign was between c. 1011 and c. 971 BCE.[91] Compared to this time period, when was daric introduced? Concerning the origins of daric, The Seaby Coin Encyclopaedia says:
Daric. A gold coin of the ancient Persian Empire, first struck under (and named after) Darius the Great, 521 - 486 B.C. It weighed 8.4 grammes, contained 3% silver alloy, and became the most widely diffused gold coin of the ancient world, accepted throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas and east as far as India.[92]
In other words, the Persian gold coin daric appeared some 400 years after the reign of David. Hence the use of daric during the time of David is an anachronism. Over 100 years ago The Jewish Encyclopedia had already catalogued several errors in the Hebrew Bible (i.e., Protestant Old Testament) arising from their study of Jewish coinage.
No credence whatever can therefore be placed in late Jewish stories mentioning coins of Abraham, Joshua, or David, or even Mordecai (Ber. R. xxxix. ; B. K. 97a). Such passages in Scripture as seem to point to the use of coined money during that period are either interpolated or late. A notable instance of anachronism occurs in I Chron. xxix. 7, where among the offerings of the chiefs of Israel in the time of King David are mentioned 10,000 gold "adarkonim" or darics, coins which were not struck before the time of King Darius I, i.e., more than 400 years after David.[93]
This notable anachronism has not gone unnoticed by contemporary Judeo-Christian scholars either and is admitted in many Bible dictionaries and commentaries. Let us survey some of them.
Concerning the use of daric in the time of David in 1 Chronicles 29:7, the HarperCollins Bible Dictionary says:
Daric... a gold coin, probably introduced by Darius I... It is used of Temple building contributions in Ezra 8:27 and anachronistically in 1 Chron. 29:7.[94]
Similarly, H. W. Perkin writing in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia mentions the anachronistic terms for money mentioned in the Old Testament. He says:
Anachronistic Terms for Money: Since coins apparently were not known in Palestine before the Exile, biblical references to money in the preexilic period are to be the weight in metal. Occasionally an author writing about an earlier event used a monetary term familiar to his readers rather than the word for the money of the earlier period. This procedure may explain the term "daric" in 1 Ch. 29:7.[95]
Similar conclusions concerning the use of daric during the time of David were also reached by The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary.
Daric [dr'k]. A Persian gold coin weighing about 8.4 g. (.3 oz.), bearing the image of Darius I Hystaspes (ca. 500 B.C.) and therefore assumed to have been coined by that ruler; it is possible that the name derived from Akk. darag mana (one-sixtieth of a mina). In the Old Testament the term (Heb. 'adarkôn) occurs at Ezra 8:27 and at 1 Chr. 29:7 (during David's days, likely an anachronism).[96]
Such observations are also made in various Bible commentaries. While discussing 1 Chronicles 29:7, The Wycliffe Bible Commentary says:
The chronicler used the daric to evaluate this offering in 970 B.C., even though coinage was actually unknown to David.[97]
New Bible Commentary 21st Century Edition also mentions this anachronism by saying:
It is made real for the Chronicler's first readers by the use of the term daric (7), a coin known in their day but not in David's.[98]
The explanation of this glaring anachronism is usually done by using the concept of prolepsis, i.e., the assignment of an event or a name, to a time that precedes it. Prolepsis is used for the sake of convenience in order that the reader or audience can be communicated in a better way. The use of daric in 1 Chronicles 29:7 is explained by The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia by saying that the Chronicler used it as an "equivalent" to explain the money involved.
Daric... Since coinage had not been invented in David's time, the reference in 1 Ch. 29:7 is to an equivalent in use at the time the Chronicler was compiling his work.[99]
A similar explanation is also made in The Expositor's Bible Commentary which says:
The "daric" was a Persian gold coin, first issued by Darius I in the century before Ezra, though in David's day this figure - equivalent to about two and one-half talents - would have represented the corresponding weight in small pieces of the precious metal.[100]
As it was mentioned earlier, the most likely reason for the existence of daric during the time of David was the late compilation of 1 Chronicles. The compilation might have dated well after the introduction of daric by Darius I. This has lead Dillard and Longman III to the opinion that 1 Chronicles could not have been written before the 5th century BCE. Acknowledging the anachronism, they say:
In 1 Chronicle 29:7 part of the people's giving for the construction of the temple is reported in darics. The daric is a Persian coin named after Darius; it was not minted before 515 B.C., and sufficient time must be allowed for it to gain wide circulation as a monetary standard also in Judah. These two passages suggest that the Chronicler could not have written before the mid-fifth century. It is more difficult to establish the latest date by which he would have written, though it is improbable that he wrote later than the beginning of the fourth century.[101]
Given such a serious anachronism, it is surprising to see the evangelical literature dealing with the Bible "difficulties" hardly discusses it.[102]
5. Conclusions
In a lecture given to his fellow missionaries Joseph Smith had claimed that the use of the word dirham during the time of Joseph is an anachronism in the Qur'an. To support his claim, he said that the dirham was created only after the advent of Islam by ‘Umar, who subsequently introduced the dirham to replace the drachma. Furthermore, he added that Joseph was sold to the Egyptians for a few dirhams, counted out. According to him, only coins are counted and there were no coins in the time of Joseph, it was bullion. Regrettably, Smith's superficial knowledge of numismatics in general and the numismatic history of the ancient near east in particular, has caused him to make many gross errors fundamental in nature.
It was shown that pre-Islamic Arabs were aware of the dirham. The evidence comes from the pre-Islamic romance poetry of ‘Antara. The Arabs from pre-Islamic Arabia handled Persian currency and called it dirham which came from the Persian drahm. Both Muslim and non-Muslim philologists agree that this is a word of foreign origin borrowed into Arabic. It is clear that the use of the dirham in the Qur'an is not an anachronism, as the Arabs from pre-Islamic times were already aware of it.
Moreover, during the advent of Islam, any silver coin was called a dirham; it was also a unit of weight and coinage, and represented a monetary unit that might or might not be represented by a circulating coin. Given the multifarious nature of dirham, the use of this word in the story of Joseph represents silver "coinage"; the silver used as deben or sh‘t in ancient Egypt. A study of "coinage" in ancient Egypt clearly shows that precious metals, especially silver, were used as money in the form of deben and sh‘t. During trade, the numbers of deben or sh‘t were specified, clearly suggesting that they were counted and were of a standard metal quality as well as of a standard weight. The texts do not say that either deben or sh‘t were weighed or tested for quality during commercial transactions. Although very common from Ramesside times onward, the evidence of such transactions extend all the way down to the mid-5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom Period, where, in one particular market scene, a particular length of cloth is valued at 6 sh‘t.
In assessing the evidence of coinage in ancient Egypt, ern came to the conclusion that sh‘ty "was a flat, round piece of metal 1/12 deben, that is about 7.6 grams, in weight, possibly with an inscription to indicate this weight or the name of the issuing authority", adding "If so, the 'piece' was practically a coin."[103] Although ern's assessment was startling,[104] he was not too far off the mark.
In conclusion, the Qur'anic description of the transaction darhima maddatin (i.e., a few pieces of silver, countable) is accurate from the point of view of ancient Egypt.
And Allah knows best!
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Qur...al/dirham.html