You know, we had a pretty involved argument about this one over the weekend. The alternate interpretation that started that one was the idea that there was a mountain pass called "The Eye of the Needle", and you had to unload your camel to get through it.
A quick Google search [camel eye needle metaphor] pulled up page after page that said that there was no historical or archaeological support for the mountain pass, the Jerusalem gate, or, in fact, the conflation of the Aramaic words for "camel" and "rope".
Wariations on the same theme crop up elsewhere in Abrahamaic discourse. The Quran invokes our old friend the camel again, while the Talmud talks about an elephant passing through a needle's eye. That one's a little harder to dismiss as a translation error.
Really, it makes pretty much exactly as much sense as "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
"Gosh, Jesus, how could a whole plank fit in someone's eye?"
[cue facepalm]
Yeshua really, really liked hyperbole, and, honestly, Jewish culture has a long, long history of that kind of pointed humor. I've long felt that the proper tone for his sermons is that of a Borscht Belt stand-up comic: "What, you want a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God? OY! You want I should shove a camel through the eye of a needle, next? You got the wrong 'Criss Angel', bubbala."
Even His Dad gets some good lines in, back in the Old Testament. Really, Job's gotta be talking to George Burns: "Oy, look who's a critic, look who's a smart guy. Where were you, with all your advice, when I was hard at work with the 'let there be light'? I couldn't even get someone to hold the ladder steady when I was putting all those stars up there!"
Ultimately, a lot of the problems in the world today and throughout history are because a majority of His followers don't get that God is a funny guy.
And everyone's afraid to laugh.
"Abe! Abe!! Enough with the knives and the altars, already! I was kidding! Eesh, look at this guy. 'How can I serve you, O Lord?' 'Well, a nice order of firstborn might be nice, maybe with a little mint jelly on the side ...' and he takes me seriously! Oy, what a schmuck."
I never met a 4 I didn't like
A quick Google search [camel eye needle metaphor] pulled up page after page that said that there was no historical or archaeological support for the mountain pass, the Jerusalem gate, or, in fact, the conflation of the Aramaic words for "camel" and "rope".
Wariations on the same theme crop up elsewhere in Abrahamaic discourse. The Quran invokes our old friend the camel again, while the Talmud talks about an elephant passing through a needle's eye. That one's a little harder to dismiss as a translation error.
Really, it makes pretty much exactly as much sense as "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"
"Gosh, Jesus, how could a whole plank fit in someone's eye?"
[cue facepalm]
Yeshua really, really liked hyperbole, and, honestly, Jewish culture has a long, long history of that kind of pointed humor. I've long felt that the proper tone for his sermons is that of a Borscht Belt stand-up comic: "What, you want a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God? OY! You want I should shove a camel through the eye of a needle, next? You got the wrong 'Criss Angel', bubbala."
Even His Dad gets some good lines in, back in the Old Testament. Really, Job's gotta be talking to George Burns: "Oy, look who's a critic, look who's a smart guy. Where were you, with all your advice, when I was hard at work with the 'let there be light'? I couldn't even get someone to hold the ladder steady when I was putting all those stars up there!"
Ultimately, a lot of the problems in the world today and throughout history are because a majority of His followers don't get that God is a funny guy.
And everyone's afraid to laugh.
"Abe! Abe!! Enough with the knives and the altars, already! I was kidding! Eesh, look at this guy. 'How can I serve you, O Lord?' 'Well, a nice order of firstborn might be nice, maybe with a little mint jelly on the side ...' and he takes me seriously! Oy, what a schmuck."