Lesson of the widow's mite
The lesson of the widow's mite or the widow's offering is presented in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 12:41–44, Luke 21:1–4), in which Jesus is teaching at the Temple in Jerusalem. The Gospel of Mark specifies that two mites (Greek lepta) are together worth a quadrans, the smallest Roman coin. A lepton was the smallest and least valuable coin in circulation in Judea, worth about six minutes of an average daily wage.[2]
"Widow's mite" redirects here. For the estate in the U.S., see Widow's Mite. It is not to be confused with Widow's Might (disambiguation).The King James Bible translation[edit]
In Jesus' times in Judea, the small copper coin was called a lepton; there was no coin called by the English term "mite" at that time. However, there was a mite in the time of the creation of the King James Bible, as indeed there had been at the time of earliest modern English translation of the New Testament by William Tyndale in 1525. The denomination was well known in the Southern Netherlands. Both the duke of Brabant and the count of Flanders issued them and they were sometimes imitated in the North. English poet Geoffrey Chaucer refers to the myte in his unfinished poem Anelida and Arcite (c. 1370).[12] Originally, the Brabant mijt (maille in French) was 1/76 stuiver, the Flemish mijt 1/48 stuiver. When the two areas were united under the dukes of Burgundy and later under the Habsburgs, the rate of the mijt was set at 1/32 stuiver. More important, they were the very smallest copper coins. By 1611, they were no longer minted, but they were still in circulation.