what is the monetary equivalent to 30 pieces of silver?

Question

what is the monetary equivalent to 30 pieces of silver?

Answer 1

It was equal to 1 years wage for an average worker.

Answer 2

Hi,
Here is some information that I hope you can find to be helpful.

The price of a slave was 30 silver shekels (perhaps 90 days’ wages). (Ex 21:32; compare Le 27:2-7.) Hosea the prophet purchased a woman for 15 silver pieces and one and a half homers (15 ephahs) of barley. Likely this payment constituted the full price for a slave. If so, an ephah (22 L; 20 dry qt) of barley was then worth one shekel.—Ho 3:2.

Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, evidently the price of a slave. (Mt 26:14-16, 47-50) No doubt these silver pieces were either shekels or other coins similar in value. But the kind of coin is not specified in the account, except for their being silver.


Modern Value
1 lepton (copper = 1⁄2 quadrans $ .006
or bronze)
1 quadrans (copper = 2 lepta .012
or bronze)
1 as (assarion) = 4 quadrantes .046
(copper or bronze)
1 denarius (silver) = 16 asses .74
1 drachma (silver) = .65
1 didrachma (silver) = 2 drachmas 1.31
1 tetradrachma* = 4 drachmas 2.62
1 mina (silver) = 100 drachmas 65.40
1 talent (silver) = 60 minas 3,924.00
1 talent (gold) = 228,900.00
* Thought to be the same as stater (silver)

Although much good can thus be done with money, the most valuable things—spiritual food and drink, eternal life itself—can be obtained without it.—Isa 55:1, 2; Re 22:17.

Isa 55:1, 2
1 Hey there, all YOU thirsty ones! Come to the water. And the ones that have no money! Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk even without money and without price. 2 Why do YOU people keep paying out money for what is not bread, and why is YOUR toil for what results in no satisfaction? Listen intently to me, and eat what is good, and let YOUR soul find its exquisite delight in fatness itself.

Answer 3

It is practically impossible to tell what thirty pieces of silver would be worth today.

However the Bible tells us what this sum is worth:
+ The compensation paid to one whose slave has been gored by an ox (Exodus 21:32)
+ The wages paid to the rejected shepherd, a cheap price (Zechariah 11:13)

With love in Christ.