No-one is born a Christian and before we were converted, whether or not anyone
said. they were Christians, all sorts of heresy and heathen fancies ran amok in our lives. Hippies, new-age zen, evolutionists, crystal gazing, logicians, free love advocates, astronomical delusions, demon possession, physicists, communists, nothing was off limits (although a single person would not be all of those at the same time) but when Jesus came all of them were left behind and many more.
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Originally Posted by Basilissa
Acts 19
19 Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
20 So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.
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Although which "arts" and what "pieces of silver" isn't specified, as I've suggested above most if not all such ideas have resurfaced whether Greek or Chinese or anything else but this is recorded in the Greek world so I'd expect the curiosities challenging Christianity to have been primarily Greek. It doesn't really matter which ones
.—
.many of them have resurfaced in the modern era of course almost exactly as they were before
.—
.because the point which impressed me was the magnitude of such righteous destruction of learning.
Matthew 27:3-7 (excerpt) Judas.….brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders [who] bought with them the potter's field.
Thirty pieces of silver was the price of a field in (or near) Jerusalem. It was a busy city with Romans and Greeks taking advantage and accommodation required for visitors so demand for land to build on would be similar to now. Agricultural land has a lower valuation than residential zones but prices are quite high. Some examples with dollar equivalents are shown below:
SOME CURRENT LAND PRICES IN ISRAEL
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1 dunam = 10,764 sq.ft......
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Field sites are not plentiful in Jerusalem but there are a few such as parks and gardens, suggesting a traditional size for fields in or close to the city. The above selection of vacant land shows a range of prices which are lower than land for sale in Jerusalem itself. Although a Jerusalem park is unlikely to be sold, by using the average land price from other locations a conservative estimate is available for comparison.
30 PIECES OF SILVER PPP
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subdivisions of contiguous plots grouped together for convenience
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An average sized field of approx. 5ľ acres can now be readily assessed and dollar prices compared. Jerusalem was fully populated during the Roman period with tourists and multiple layers of administration so it's a good comparison. The "high" value is for a good residential location outside of Jerusalem and the "average" includes a nice agricultural lot with two houses having a considerably lower valuation.
Our conservative estimate of a value for the destroyed books in Acts is in the
$10- to
$20-billion range [USD] approximately. Obviously land in a city fetches a premium over land in the boondocks and any higher land values today would be offset by higher books prices then. The US book publishing industry generated an estimated $26.23 billion
in net revenue for 2017.
1. https://israelrealestatehomesandinvestments.com/tag/buy-land-in-israel/
2. https://publishingperspectives.com/2018/07/us-statshot-publisher-survey-2017-estimates-revenue/