Part 2: The annoying matter of the 29 coins.
As for the 29 instead of 30, don't know. There was a common medieval riddle in which the answer was that a king was worth only 29 pieces of silver, as no King could be worth more than Jesus. (See You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.and others). I doubt this has anything to do with the matter in hand.
Other than that, it is very firmly embedded in tradition that there were 30 coins, and all medieval depictions show 30 where-ever possible. What's the point in displaying a different number?
Well, maybe it's an attempt at obfuscation; show 29 instead of 30 so it's not immediately obvious. Maybe it's an accident, the scribe didn't count them properly and realised afterwards he couldn't amend the drawing. And maybe it's intentional.
The "coins" are depicted in two plants, each sprouting branches in assortments of threes. The right hand plant has three branches with three coins dangling, and a single larger coin pointing to the right (so that's four groups of three).
The left hand branch has three individual coins to the right; and three branches to the left. Each of the individual branches again has a single larger coin extruding from the end of the branch. The top branch has three coins, the bottom two four each.
Each plant has four red coins, making a total of 8 red coins and 21 green coins.
Let us assume that this isn't a mistake, because that would take all the fun out of it. Let's assume there is a code.
If we look at the books of the Bible that interest us (dealing with Jesus), we see that there aren't many with 21 chapters. Out of all of them, the only one of interest is Luke. You are not allowed to view links.
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And You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.starts with the Widow's Offering, before going onto the Destruction of the Temple, warning in an apocalyptic tone of what will happen after the death of Jesus.
So, let us imagine that these two chapters are of interest to the scribe and the illustrator decided to incorporate a visual mnemonic into the illustration. He had to sacrifice the 30 coins imagery, but it was worth it in order to get in the link to Chapters 8 and Chapters 21, which are indicated by the colour of the coins.
One final argument in favour: the Gospel of Luke is the
third book of the four canonical gospels dealing with the life of Christ.
Of course, it's perfectly possible that the chapters in question are actually marked by the red coins. But I can't find a canonical gospel with 29 chapters in it....
As an aside, the 30 coins of Judas were used in medieval times to remind the peasants of the dangers of accumulating wealth for wealth's sake. Many English coins of the period were marked with a cross; not for Christian purposes, but to remind the bearer of the teachings of Christ as regards the hoarding of money and general anti-social use of cash.