During the biblical period, traded goods often served as currency, though minted coins were also coming into use. Payment was measured against a set amount of silver by weight – the shekel. One shekel was equivalent to a specific weight of silver or gold.

The word shekel means simply "weight." In New Testament times, a shekel was a silver coin weighing, well, one shekel (about.4 ounces or 11 grams). Three thousand shekels equaled one talent, the heaviest and largest unit of measurement for weight and value in Scripture.

In the Hebrew Bible, the value of a Shekel is often connected to the value of a litra, an ancient unit of weight used to measure silver. A Shekel is said to be equal to 1/3 litra, meaning that a Shekel in the Bible would have been worth around 1/3 of a kilogram, or 700 grams.

By Jewish religious law, as commanded in the Bible itself (Exodus 30:13; 38:25), every male Jew over the age of 20 had to give an annual contribution to the temple, of “half a shekel”. In the first century a shekel was equated with the Greek tetradrachm (equal to four drachms), which was a silver coin of the weight of nearly 14 grams.