[ranprieur]

I don't buy the idea that changing camel to rope is about pleasing rich people, because a rope can still nowhere near get through the eye of a needle.

But a rope is qualitatively the same kind of thing as a thread; so if camel is the right word, the message is that what gets into the kingdom of God is a whole different kind of thing than money.

[Zancarius]

I agree!

Where this argument pops up is through the modern myth that "eye of a needle" was a reference to a particular gate in Jerusalem (or something similar; there are different variants of this claim). If this were true, then THAT would turn the passage from an impossibility to something that's rather exceedingly difficult, thus pleasing rich people. Rope versus camel doesn't dramatically change the outcome as much as changing the idiom from a literal needle to a gate.

Here's what the IVP commentary says:

19:23–26. Here Jesus clearly uses *hyperbole. His words reflect an ancient Jewish figure of speech for the impossible: a very large animal passing through a needle’s eye. On regular journeys at twenty-eight miles per day, a fully loaded camel could carry four hundred pounds in addition to its rider; such a camel would require a gate at least ten feet high and twelve feet wide. (A needle’s eye in Jesus’ day meant what it means today; the idea that it was simply a name for a small gate in Jerusalem is based on a gate from the medieval period and sheds no light on Jesus’ teaching in the first century.)

Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, Second Edition. (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2014), 94.

[Natsu]

> Where this argument pops up is through the modern myth that "eye of a needle" was a reference to a particular gate in Jerusalem

The article says this theory appears as early as the 11th century, which isn't quite "modern."

[Zancarius]

Good point. I guess my view of "modern" with regards to scripture is somewhat warped by the view that anything later than, say, the 7th or 8th centuries is "too new."

Either way, the analogy is anachronistic to the text, which is probably the better way to render it.

[bee_rider]

Clearly we should just combine both of these revisions—tossing some rope through a gate would be easy!

[Zancarius]

I like the way you think!

[vintermann]

> His words reflect an ancient Jewish figure of speech for the impossible

The article claims that the Gospels are the oldest known use of the figure of speech.

[Zancarius]

Maybe, at least in "modern" writing.

The problem I have with that claim is that the phrasing "eye of a needle" appears in Talmudic writings that predate the NT, so the idea itself likely predates that, and other creatures (elephants) have been used instead of camels.

Granted, this is just hair-splitting, but I would strongly suspect its use dates much earlier.

[angiosperm]

There are no Talmudic manuscripts that predate the NT. There is a reasonable inference that much of what is in them does, but there is no guessing which bits those are.

[Zancarius]

Ah interesting, thanks! I didn't realize the only surviving manuscripts for which we have evidence date approximately to the time range of the MT. Whereas the Sinaiticus majuscule is easily 2-4 centuries earlier. Still, I would expect the idiom was well-established by the first century.

[jjeaff]

the version of the eye of the needle being a particular gate in Jerusalem that I heard is that it was a short entrance. so a camel could conceivably go through it, but you would have to take off any provisions it is packing and the camel would have to kneel down to get through. Which I think would square with other teachings of Jesus, which is that a man CAN get into heaven by humbling himself (kneeling) and casting off his worldly possessions first.

[DontchaKnowit]

I dont understand why people refuse to take this line as literally as possible -

A rich person has as much chance of entering heaven as a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle.

Its just a humorous way of saying "fat chance" ... why read into it so much. Never made any sense to me.

[tsimionescu]

The reason why people don't want to take this line literally is very simple: they don't want to believe that they can't live a life of luxury and still go into heaven. If you're both a believer and rich, you can either live with the cognitive dissonance, renounce your faith, or just reinterpret the precepts you don't like to suit you.

[anonymous_sorry]

There are some lyrics by a band called the Divine Comedy (how apposite) that used to make me smile:

The cars in the churchyard are shiny and German

(Distinctly at odds with the theme of the sermon),

And during communion I study the people

Threading themselves through the eye of the needle.

[DontchaKnowit]

Love those lyrics

[NotYourLawyer]

Or just understand that people spoke hyperbolically 2000 years ago just like they do now.

[starcraft2wol]

Now read the next verse.

[tsimionescu]

I know - the meaning is actually indisputable from all of the context, regardless of the precise phrase.

But, even so, it is also indisputable that many who consider themselves devout Christians, rich and poor alike, reach a very different conclusion about the meaning of this whole exchange. I can only imagine this must be motivated reasoning.

I found a thread showing some such rationalizations:

https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/60225/how-d...

Interestingly, it seems modern day prosperity gospel sorts don't go for a reinterpretation of the camel, but for a reinterpretation of the word "rich".

[johnsonjo]

I think gp meant the next two verses. Where the verse two after the one we are talking about says:

Mark 10:27 And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

[marcus_holmes]

That's how I read it. That he was just looking around exasperated trying to explain why rich people don't go to heaven, and saw a camel and made it up on the spot as an example of something that is obviously impossible.

I still find it fascinating that this simple, utterly unambiguous line, gets totally ignored or misinterpreted so that rich people get to call themselves christian while persecuting gay folks on the basis of vague OT references.

[KMag]

The OT references aren't vague, but due to the idea of the new covenant, they likely apply as much as the OT prohibitions against touching pig leather or touching a menstruating woman.

The only treatment of homosexuality in the NT comes from Paul, and the Greek word he uses for the receiving partner is specifically the word for an underage male slave kept for sexual purposes, so it's unclear how applicable it is to modern consenting adults. I'd certainly much prefer Paul was trying to say "Yo, don't be a pedo, and no matter your circumstance as far as you have control don't ever offer sexual favors for advancement/favorable treatment" instead of "Yo, don't be gay."

However, unfortunately we'll never know how Paul would have felt about modern Western conceptions of homosexuality, and my wishes have zero impact on his actual intent. He would have been familiar with Jewish culture in which homosexuality was forbidden, and Hellenistic culture where creepy mentor/mentee homosexual pedophilia was apparently commonplace. He may not have had any concept resembling our modern Western conception of homosexuality, so even in an alternate history where he wrote "Yo, don't be gay" (somehow miraculously in modern English), reasonable people could still disagree over modern applicability.

An in-depth study of Paul's Koine Greek word choices for homosexuality would probably be much more enlightening than an in-depth study of Aramaic words for rope and camel. Rope vs. camel has zero impact on practical application of the teaching.

Also, the main thrust of Jesus's teaching is against the arrogance of religious authorities and against greed/selfishness. Jesus never mentions homosexuality, and the entire NT maybe mentions homosexuality (or maybe lack of consent was the gripe there) once. The preoccupation some churches have with homosexuality is clearly unwarranted. (On a side note, the OT explicitly mentions that arrogance was the sin that doomed Sodom. Food for thought for anyone citing Sodom, new covenant aside.)

[Amezarak]

> the Greek word he uses for the receiving partner is specifically the word for an underage male slave kept for sexual purposes,

I've seen this making the rounds on TikTok and it is absolutely untrue. What I find unsettling about this is the people who originally made this claim (not the ones unknowingly spreading it) had to have been deliberately dishonest. It's very easy to verify this for yourself - Greek and English side-by-sides are readily available with Greek dictionaries.

There are actually several Pauline references. The most famous is probably Romans 1:27.

> And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

You can see the Greek words used, their translations, and look up their meanings and usage here:

https://biblehub.com/romans/1-27.htm

You can see it is literally the same word, "men with men." There is no connotation of boyhood or slavery. The same is true in the other verses usually claimed to "actually" mean underage boys, although two verses do have an unusual word.

One such verse is in 1 Corinthians 6:9:

https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/6-9.htm

> Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

In this case, the word is arsenokoitai, which is an unusual word, possibly of Paul's coinage. But again, we can refer to dictionaries for the meaning and etymology. You can already see the root is the same as before.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%80%CF%81%CF%83%CE%B5%C...

Once again, there is no connotation of being underage or a slave.

To be clear, this is not an endorsement - but we should be honest about what the text says. They usually also make this claim about Leviticus, even though the word used is just "male" and means such throughout the rest of the OT.

[KMag]

Thanks for the correction. TIL.

[DontchaKnowit]

agreed - although My understanding is that the word Paul uses there is actually not even a real word, and appears nowhere else in literature at the time - so we really have no clue what he means.

I always find it interesting that there is at least this one verse where there is some contention as to whether it is an explicit ban on male homosexual relationships - But there is absolutely no argument whatsoever : there is no reference at all to female homosexual relationships in the bible. Ever. And yet the church is often very preoccupied with viewing lesbian relationships as a sin. Very strange

[rom16384]

Arguably there is a reference to female homosexual relationships in Romans 1:26, "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature."

[angiosperm]

Could as easily have meant buttplay. We have certain evidence that Roman prostitutes offered that, maybe habitually against contraception.

[aeneasmackenzie]

In case you are not aware, apostolic churches do not and have never claimed to draw their teaching authority from the bible. It is true that sola scriptura groups are in a pickle here.

[sn41]

I agree, but I guess it goes against things like the Work Ethic [1], the Prosperity Theology [2] and the funding sources of megachurches, all which take material prosperity as a sign of divine grace. It is strange that some megachurches who espouse "Sola fide" and "Sola scriptura" also directly contradict one of the famous sayings in the Gospels.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic#Weber's_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology

[felipeerias]

Within the context of Matthew 19, it is clear that the goal was to provide an impossible example. The whole conversation doesn't make sense otherwise.

Furthermore, the image of a camel trying to get through the eye of a needle is extremely memorable, which was very important for transmission in the oral culture of the time. Notice that this expression is still used regularly in many languages.

————

Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.”

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?”

But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

————

[tomohawk]

The point being that if you want a relationship with him, you have to be willing to give up everything and trust him only. Those who are wealthy are unwilling to give up their trust in their wealth, but by God's grace, they may be able to do just that. In the case of the young man, he chose to trust in his wealth instead of Jesus. There are accounts in Acts of wealthy people being part of the church.

[heavyset_go]

> I don't buy the idea that changing camel to rope is about pleasing rich people, because a rope can still nowhere near get through the eye of a needle.

I agree, considering the prosperity gospel types have found a way to reinterpret the analogy literally, claiming that Jesus was actually talking about a gateway to Jerusalem called the Eye of the Needle[1] that required those with goods to hand them through the Eye to get where they're going.

The analogy, in that interpretation, means that wealth was able to pass through the Eye, and thus so could the wealthy enter heaven.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle#Gate

[kragen]

the article discusses the origin of this other specious interpretation at some length

[tsimionescu]

The article explicitly quotes the original source for this kamilos theory as claiming exactly this:

> ‘camel’: he doesn’t mean the pack animal here, but the thick rope, with which sailors bind anchors. He shows that the situation isn’t absolutely permanent, but makes the matter extremely difficult for him in future, and for the present, close to and neighbouring on impossibility.

So, even if you don't agree with Cyril's reasoning, it is clear that he believed that "camel through the eye of a needle" would have meant complete impossibility, but "rope through the eye of a needle" actually allows a slither of a chance.

[Zanni]

Rope and needle are close enough in scale that passing the one through the other is merely improbable. Consider a thin rope and a large needle, for example. You could also unbraid a rope and pass it through a needle, strand by strand, and reconstruct it on the other "side." Much harder to do with a camel.

[DebtDeflation]

Except that the rope in question here is a "seafaring" rope used by sailors. If you're familiar with nautical rope, it has no more possibility of passing through the eye of even the largest sail needle than a camel does.

[acdha]

This is true but I don’t think this was aimed at people who were going to deeply contemplate it as a serious metaphor. It seems more along the lines of effective altruism, designed to let people sleep comfortably while enjoying the pleasures of wealth now while saying that they would thin the rope with a massive donation later (why do you even need to ask?), which the church could very conveniently help receive.