Harlan J. Berk discusses the set of Crucifixion Period Roman Iron Nail 1st Century A.D. Created and used by the Roman Empire & A Poor Widow's Mite 1st Century B.C.
i saw these at a recent coin show I attended in evansville in, a hj berk representative had a couple sets. wasn't really something I was interested IN, but when I saw it I asked they guy if he had some other ancient coins, and he whipped out a box of goodies he had stashed away. picked up a nice greek coin from him.
Not to rain on any parades, but why would I want to pay money for something that was used to torture a human being to death? Feels unwholesome on the level of grave robbing for wedding rings.
I have a lot of respect for Mr Berk but I think he should be stressing the actual history of those nails (which by itself is fascinating) rather than attempting to associate them with the crucifixion.
From what I understand and from the appearance of the nails they could not have been used in a crucifixion, they are just too small to support the weight of a person IMO. These were just every day nails used in various carpentry work. Mr Berk did mention that they were also used to make weapons. So they are more an artifact of every day life rather than having anything to do with crucifixion. He bought 100,000 nails and wants to make a profit on his investment so he's just using salesman hype. I would think if he could find an actual crucifixion nail he would be asking a lot more money than just $50.
As far as I'm aware archaeologists have found a grand total of one guaranteed crucifixion nail. However we do have the name of the man who was executed with it.
Not even a widow's mite--the coin shown on the video is most likely a prutah. Actual widow's mites had extremely shallow relief and are not attractive coins. Since the entire point of the bible verse was the extremely small value of the mites, selling a prutah as a lepton is kind of like selling a 1916 Barber dime as a 1916-D Mercury dime.
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Posted 12/03/2015 11:03 pm
