this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2024
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Yeah, it was apparently a small gate, and possibly a common saying. We have all kinds of weird idioms, like if you start talking about something off-topic you're "getting sidetracked." Why would you be talking about a train?
I didn't come up with this. It's a really old explanation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-25583,00.html
From the article you linked:
It seems so unlikely that this is the case. Why would anyone write a metaphor so convoluted about a gate? It's an attempt to weasel out of the fact that Jesus outright tells rich people to give away all their shit.
It still means that exact same thing. We use weird idioms all the time that make no sense why we'd talk about them that way. Why do we use sidetrack for a tangent when that's a term used for trains? We do we call "crazy" people "coocoo", as in a type of bird? Idioms are strange things.
It's clear what Jesus meant (assuming he said this at all, but I'm not convinced he's even real), whatever it is that may have been being discussed. No one is arguing that. It doesn't matter if camel meant rope, whether the eye of the needle was a gate, or if that translation we read in the king James Bible is accurate (it isn't). It all says the same thing.
It doesn't necessarily mean the same thing. The camel/gate (unfounded) interpretation has been stretched to note that a camel COULD fit through the gate on its knees, therefore it's a metaphor about being on your knees (pray) if you are wealthy and you can go through the gate, i.e., you can be rich if you are pious.
Which... brings us full circle to the Pharisees. The good news is, we can all be Jesus, right now and start finding these people in person and calling them out.