The talent (Ancient Greek: τάλαντον, talanton, Latin: talentum, Biblical Hebrew: kikkar כִּכָּר, Ugaritic: kkr (𐎋𐎋𐎗),
In the Hebrew Bible, it is recorded that the gold used in the work of the sanctuary (tabernacle), where the Ark of the Covenant was, weighed 29 talents and 730 shekels,
The talent is also mentioned in connection with other metals, ivory,[auri eborisque talenta "talents of gold and ivory", Vergil, Aeneid 11.333.] and frankincense. In Homer's poems, it is always used of gold and is thought to have been quite a small weight of about , approximately the same as the later gold stater coin or Persian daric.
In later times in Greece, it represented a much larger weight, approximately 3,000 times as much: an Attica talent was approximately .[John William Humphrey, John Peter Oleson, Andrew Neil Sherwood, Greek and Roman technology, p. 487.] The word also came to be used as the equivalent of the Middle Eastern kakkaru or kikkar. A Babylonian talent was . Ancient Israel adopted the Babylonian weight talent, but later revised it.[" III. Measures of Weight:", Jewish Encyclopedia.] The heavy common talent, used in New Testament times, was .
Akkadian talent
The Akkadian talent was called
kakkaru in the Akkadian language,
[or less specifically biltu 'tribute, load', corresponding to Biblical Aramaic בְּלוֹ (belu) 'tribute, tax' ( Akkadian Lexicon Companion for Biblical Hebrew Etymological, Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalence, Hayim Tawil, 2009. Also Jastrow Dictionary.)] corresponding to Biblical Hebrew
kikkar כִּכָּר (translated as Greek τάλαντον 'talanton' in the
Septuagint,
English 'talent'), Ugaritic
kkr (𐎋𐎋𐎗),
Phoenician
kkr (𐤒𐤒𐤓),
Syriac
kakra (ܟܲܟܪܵܐ),
and apparently to
gaggaru in the
Amarna letters.
The name comes from the Semitic root
KKR meaning 'to be circular',
referring to round masses of gold or silver.
The
kakkaru or talent weight was introduced in Mesopotamia at the end of the 4th millennium BC, and was normalized at the end of the 3rd millennium during the Akkadian-Sumer phase. The talent was divided into 60 minas, each of which was subdivided into 60
(following the common Mesopotamian
sexagesimal number system). These weights were used subsequently by the
Babylonians,
and
Phoenicians, and later by the
Hebrews. The Babylonian weights are approximately: shekel (), mina () and talent ().
The Greeks adopted these weights through their trade with the Phoenicians along with the ratio of 60 minas to one talent. A Greek mina in Euboea around 800 BC weighed 504 g;[See J.H. Kroll, "Early Iron Age balance weights at Lefkandi, Euboea". Oxford Journal of Archaeology 27, pp. 37–48 (2008)] other minas in the Mediterranean basin, and even other Greek minas, varied in some small measure from the Babylonian values, and from one to another. The Bible mentions the unit in various contexts, like Hiram I king of Tyre sending 120 talents of gold to King Solomon as part of an alliance,
Origin
William Ridgeway speculates that the
kakkaru/
kikkar was originally the weight of a load which could be carried by a man. Thus in the Book of Kings we read that Naaman “bound two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of garments, and laid them upon two of his servants; and they bare them before him”.
[2 Kings 5.23.] He notes that in Assyrian cuneiform, the same ideogram or sign was used for both "tribute" and "talent", which might be explained if a load of corn was the regular unit of tribute.
[Ridgeway, William (1892). The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards, Cambridge, p. 264.]
Homeric talent
In Homer, the word τάλαντα in the plural is sometimes used of a pair of scales or a balance;
[The Latin word libra also has a dual meaning of "balance" and "pound weight".] it is used especially of the scales in which Zeus weighed the fortunes of men (
Iliad 8.69, 19.223, 22.209). The word is also used as a measurement, always of gold. "From the order of the prizes in Il. 23.262 sq. and other passages its weight was probably not great".
[Liddell, Scott, Jones, Greek Lexicon, s.v. τάλαντον.]
According to Seltman, the original Homeric talent was probably the gold equivalent of the value of an ox or a cow.[Charles Theodore Seltman (1924) Athens, Its History and Coinage Before the Persian Invasion, pp. 112–114.] Homer describes how Achilles set an ox as 2nd prize in a foot race, and a half-talent of gold as the third prize, suggesting that the ox was worth a talent.[Homer, The Iliad, Hom. Il. 23.750–1.] Based on a statement from a later Greek source that "the talent of Homer was equal in amount to the later Persian daric ... i.e. two Attic Ancient drachma" and analysis of finds from a Mycenaean Greece grave-shaft, a weight of about can be established for this original talent.
Attic talent
An Attic talent was the equivalent of 60 minae or 6,000
Ancient drachma.
An Attic weight talent was about . Friedrich Hultsch estimated a weight of 26.2 kg,[ p 135] and offers an estimate of 26.0 kg.[, in Appendix II]
An Attic talent of silver was the value of nine man-years of skilled work, according to known wage rates from 377 BC.[Engen, Darel. " The Economy of Ancient Greece", EH.Net Encyclopedia, 2004.] In 415 BC, an Attic talent was a month's pay for a trireme crew.[Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Book 6, verse 8: "Early in the spring of the following summer the Athenian envoys arrived from Sicily, and the Egestaeans with them, bringing sixty talents of uncoined silver, as a month's pay for sixty ships, which they were to ask to have sent them."] Hellenistic mercenaries were commonly paid one drachma per day of military service.
Aeginetan talent
The
Aegina talent weighed about 37 kg. The German historian Friedrich Hultsch calculated a range of 36.15 to 37.2 kg based on such estimates as the weight of one full Aeginetan
metretes of coins, and concluded that the Aeginetan talent represented the water weight of a Babylonian
ephah: 36.29 kg by his reckoning (the
metretes and the
ephah were units of volume).
[, p 502] Percy Gardner estimated a weight of 37.32 kg, based on extant weights and coins.
An Aeginetan talent was worth 60 Aeginetan minae, or 6,000 Aeginetan drachmae.
Talent in late Hebrew antiquity
The talent (,
kikkar;
Aramaic: , ) in late Hebrew antiquity (c. 500 CE) was the greatest unit of weight in use at the time, and which weight varied depending on the era. According to the
Jerusalem Talmud (
Sanhedrin 9a,
Pnei Moshe Commentary, s.v. ), the weight of the talent at the time of
Moses was double that of the Roman era talent, which latter had the weight of either 100
maneh (Roman librae), or 60
maneh (Roman librae),
[Jerusalem Talmud ( Sanhedrin end of chapter 1 9a), where litra is used, being the Greek form of the Latin libra.] each
maneh (
libra) having the weight of 25
selas
[ (reprinted from Jerusalem editions, 1907, 1917 and 1988)] (
sela being a term used for the biblical Shekel of Tyrian coinage, or 'shekel of the Sanctuary', and where there were 4 provincial
denarii or
zuz to each
sela;
25
selas being equivalent to 100
denaria).
[cf. Babylonian Talmud ( Kiddushin 11b), Rashi s.v. ][, s.v. Hil. Kelei HaMikdash 2:3]
The standard talent during the late Second Temple period was the talent consisting of 60 maneh.[Jerusalem Talmud ( Sanhedrin 9a), Pnei Moshe Commentary, s.v. ][Shelomo Qorah, ʿArikhat Shūlḥan - Yilqūṭ Ḥayyīm, vol. 13 (Principles of Instruction and Tradition), Benei Barak 2012, p. 206 (Hebrew title: עריכת שולחן - ילקוט חיים) ] with every sela or 'shekel of the sanctuary' weighing-in at 20.16 grammes. The sum aggregate of the 60 maneh talent (or 1,500 selas) came to c. . According to Adani, in the silver coinage known as the Mughal India Rupee, minted during British colonial rule (each with a weight of (1 tola), of which weight only 91.7% was of fine silver), one talent (Heb. kikkar) would have amounted to 2,343 of these silver coins in specie (), in addition to the minuscule weight of 12 ma’in (10.08 grammes).
Talent in New Testament
The talent as a unit of value is mentioned in the
New Testament in
Jesus' Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14–30).
The use of the word "talent" to mean "gift or skill" in English and other languages originated from an interpretation of this parable sometime late in the 13th century.
[Skeat, Walter W. A concise etymological dictionary of the English language. p. 489. "Talent. (F.-L-Gk.) The sense of 'ability' is from the parable; Matt. xxv. F. talent, 'a talent in money; also will, desire;' Cot. —L. talentum. — Gk. Τάλαντον, a balance, weight, sum of money, talent. Named from being lifted and weighed; cf. Skt. tul, L. tollere, to lift, Gk. τάλ-ας, sustaining. (TAL.) Allied to Tolerate. Der. talent-ed, in use before A. D. 1700."][ "talent (n)". Online Etymological Dictionary. Retrieved 7 June 2022. "late 13c., 'inclination, disposition, will, desire', from Old French talent (12c.), from Medieval Latin talenta, plural of talentum 'inclination, leaning, will, desire' (11c.), in classical Latin 'balance, weight; sum of money', from Greek talanton 'a balance, pair of scales', hence "weight, definite weight, anything weighed', and in later times 'sum of money', from PIE * tele- 'to lift, support, weigh', 'with derivatives referring to measured weights and thence money and payment' Watkins; see extol."] Luke includes a different parable involving the mina.
According to Epiphanius, the talent is called
mina (
maneh) among the Hebrews, and was the equivalent in weight to one-hundred
denarii.
[Epiphanius. Treatise on Weights and Measures (Syriac Version). James Elmer Dean, ed. (1935). Chicago University Press. §45] The talent is found in another parable of Jesus
where a servant who is forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents refuses to forgive another servant who owes him only one hundred silver
denarii.
In Revelation 16:21, the talent is used as a weight for hail being poured forth from heaven and dropping on mankind as punishment in the end times: "And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." (KJV) Various definitions are provided in different translations:
-
NIV: a footnote says "Talent: 75 or 100 pounds."
-
NLT: text reads "weighing as much as seventy-five pounds".
-
ESV: text reads "about one hundred pounds each".
Bibliography
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