Hiding treasure in ancient times was not uncommon, especially in times
of distress. Josephus reports that among the ruins of Jerusalem after its destruction
the Romans recovered much of the city’s wealth of “gold and silver and other
most precious articles, which the owners in view of the uncertain fortunes of
war had stored underground” [kata gēs]. (Josephus, Jewish War,
7.5.2 [Loeb 3:539]) In A Man Entrusts Property, the third servant buries his
talent in the ground. Many of the ancient gold and silver coins in modern collections
come from caches buried in the ground, usually in a pot. Modern archaeologists
are not the only ones who recover the hidden treasures of the ancients as both
the Qumran scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library have made evident. (Bernard
Brandon Scott, Hear then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus [Minneapolis:
Augsburg Fortress, 1989], 395)
