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jack"As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him"
One of the little facts everyone hears when someone first starts to "explain" the new testament is that "tax collector" isn't just annoying. Honestly, nowadays, most middle class UK people I know just have money disappear from their paycheck. I understand it may be a lot more annoying in America, where apparently it's a lot more common to have to guess badly and then have to make a massive payment at the end of the year, or discover you've been overpaying all year. But apparently, all this land was _occupied_. So anyone collecting tax was working for the government, ie. the one imposed from Rome, that most people didn't want.
In fact, a quick google says (unsurprisingly in retrospect), everyone didn't give a scrupulously accurate 22% to the government. Rather, tax collectors paid the government up front, and then strode around seeing how much they could extract from people as a return on their investment. I don't know how specifically accurate that is, but it's easy to forget that without modern records and communications, taxes can often be a lot more of an ad-hoc thing.
For that matter, what is this "booth"? Is this where people came to pay taxes? Or is it somewhere people are supposed to pay tolls? Why is it next to a lake -- are we in a town at this point?
Also, why did everyone have two names?
One of the little facts everyone hears when someone first starts to "explain" the new testament is that "tax collector" isn't just annoying. Honestly, nowadays, most middle class UK people I know just have money disappear from their paycheck. I understand it may be a lot more annoying in America, where apparently it's a lot more common to have to guess badly and then have to make a massive payment at the end of the year, or discover you've been overpaying all year. But apparently, all this land was _occupied_. So anyone collecting tax was working for the government, ie. the one imposed from Rome, that most people didn't want.
In fact, a quick google says (unsurprisingly in retrospect), everyone didn't give a scrupulously accurate 22% to the government. Rather, tax collectors paid the government up front, and then strode around seeing how much they could extract from people as a return on their investment. I don't know how specifically accurate that is, but it's easy to forget that without modern records and communications, taxes can often be a lot more of an ad-hoc thing.
For that matter, what is this "booth"? Is this where people came to pay taxes? Or is it somewhere people are supposed to pay tolls? Why is it next to a lake -- are we in a town at this point?
Also, why did everyone have two names?