ABSTRACT
In this passage (paralleled at Mark 12:13–17; Luke 20:20–26), the Pharisees, who are constructed throughout the Gospels largely as Jesus’s adversaries, try to trap Jesus. The trap, though, is surprisingly enigmatic: Why do they think he would say that it is unlawful to pay taxes to the emperor? Is it because they assume that Jesus opposes Roman rule in particular, or do they assume that he more generally thinks that no one has a right to rule God’s people? Or is it a denial that humans, as opposed to God, can own anything? Paul (Romans 13:6–7) unequivocally says that all should pay taxes to the ruling authorities. Jesus’s answer—“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’”—would become a cornerstone of later political arrangements between the Church and monarchs in the Middle Ages but in its original context might have had a far more radical message.
