Abraham has two sons, (in alphabetical order) Isaac and Ishmael. Abraham grows old and goes to meet his Maker. To his sons he leaves his flock of sheep and an old camel, which is too old to be of any use.
Isaac and Ishmael go and sell the sheep at market-place. For each single sheep they get as many shekels as there were sheep in the flock originally. (They didn't need to worry about EMU criteria at the time, not to mention value added tax.)
The sons receive the payment as a stack of ten shekel gold-chunks
plus a few one shekel gold-pieces. They divide the profit like this:
| 10 shekels to Isaac | 10 shekels to Ishmael |
| 10 shekels to Isaac | 10 shekels to Ishmael |
| ...etc... | |
| 10 shekels to Isaac | 10 shekels to Ishmael |
| 10 shekels to Isaac |
Ishmael examines the camel and says: "All right brother, I have heard that these inheritance disputes may last generations. They can cause a lot of trouble, and they may have very unfavourable effects to the general political stability in the region, especially the petrochemical industry, not to mention tourism. I would like to avoid such bad business. I heard someone is going to take some pictures of the pyramids to be used on cigarette ads; maybe I could sell this old rheumatistic camel to them to be used as a prop. I really think that we are completely even if I keep the rest of the shekels and the camel. "
How many shekels did Ishmael think he would get from selling the camel?
Published in Njet Problem! collection 1998-03-13.