The men on the coins

I'm looking some more at Egerton's fragment 2r, that wild paraSynoptic account of the Coin Of The Realm. Egerton's page filibusters with an Isaiah quote until it breaks, so we don't read the coin, although all scholars agree that Jesus will draw it out in the text past the break. The coin might be Tiberian; it might be Herodian - Bell and Skitt don't take sides. I'm concentrating here on the leadup.

All four Gospels in question (I'll get to The Fifth Gospel, Thomas, anon) lead with the peoples' flattery, calling Jesus a "teacher" (didask-). The Gospels agree the questioners are insincere. For Egerton, they are subjecting Jesus to fitna (peirazein); for Mark 12:13f. et al., Jesus asks them, why peirazete him. Jesus is too wise for them; Egerton has Jesus putting himself in the place of Isaiah's God.

As to their differences: Mark's inquisitors are Pharisees and Herodians. Matthew, bearing his usual grudges, has the Pharisees putting on their best 4chan "happy merchant" face and sending the Herodians to do their dirty work. Luke and Egerton agree not to mention exactly who posed the question. Why is Luke eliding what Mark (and maybe Matthew too) told him? It could be that Luke, addressing a gentile audience, is abstracting away elements of the context. Perhaps.

Where Mark and Matthew only have their questioners "ensnare him by his words", Luke goes further: so they might deliver him (paradoûnai) unto the power and authority (tê_i archê_i) of the governor.

Egerton notes here the context of authority, he arche. In another Egerton story, first fragment, is a parallel to John 7:30 - the people's "archons" could not take Jesus, because his Hour Of Paradosis had not come.

Egerton's fragments do not record explicitly (is "explied" a word?) who was tempting Jesus - their base text may not ever have stated it. But Luke's parallels offer a hint. Egerton's first fragment addresses the lawyers, and goes on that the "archons of the people" were eager for the paradosis of Jesus. The second fragment's questioners would be too obvious if they were the archons themselves. That fragment likely followed the same parallel: the lawyers are the main villains, pushing Jesus afoul of the archons.

Mark, then, gathered the lawyers and archons to Jerusalem as Pharisees and Herodians, insisting on Caesar as the man on Provincial coin. Matthew, like Egerton, albeit possibly by way of an "Oral Gospel", had the former goad the latter - retaining Caesar from Mark. Luke knew Egerton directly and mined it for 20:20-4 (as far as we have Egerton).

If Egerton's second fragment is set in Jerusalem, here is a radical thought. Maybe Egerton involved two coins, as Ignatius hints in his letter to Magnesia. This, to set out a triptych like Thomas did. One coin had Caesar, another Herod. Jesus would say: give to Caesar what is his, give to "the king" what is his, and give to G-d what is His.