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The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

kiwihellenist.blogspot.com

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Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#151

Post by bee_rider »

Zancarius wrote: post #35
ranprieur wrote: post #24

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.

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 mu…

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

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#152

Post by tsimionescu »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #105

This may be a bit un-orthodox, but I think there is some sense in Trinity if you interpret it properly: "Father" is the concrete DNA that creates each of us. "Son" is each individual that manifests that DNA. "Holy Ghost" is the whole INFORMATION in the DNA-population which gives rise to different concrete DNA strands. They are all manifestations of the same thing.

You're trying to find a contrived scientific notion of trinitarianism, which is a belief that is built out of the long history of Judaism and Christianity. How does this make any sense? If you don't believe Jesus was an actual person, or that God the Father gave stone tablets to Moses, what does the trinity even mean to you? And if you do believe in these things, how is "DNA" a satisfying explanation for the Father who parted the sea for His people to cross it?

How would you interpret the sacrifice of Jesus/God the Son to save humanity (God sacrificing Himself to save humanity) in this DNA based framework?

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#153

Post by bee_rider »

I guess the fact that “big animal through a needle’s eye” was a common expression would make it more obvious. But, without knowing it, I kind of thought the rope phrasing seemed better. Without knowing the expression, “camel through a needle’s eye” sounds a bit fanciful, like there must be some sort of fairy-tale exception or trick to make it work. Edit: for example maybe camel fur can be made into thread? I don’t know.

“Rope through a needle’s eye” would just be a mundanely impossible task, which, if anything, makes the analogy more concrete, in my opinion. The fact a rope is pretty similar to a thread, except in the very way that matters for fitting it through a needle’s eye, makes it more obvious.

It seems like the theory is pretty throughly debunked anyway. But it is sort of funny that the misreading doesn’t even get you very close to the supposed goal.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#155

Post by Jedd »

guerrilla wrote: post #120
Jedd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some parts of Matthew and Luke that neither come from Mark nor Q so they each also have one or more other sources unique to themselves. Given that we know nothing about the provenance or contents of 'Q' - it's lost to time, and its hypothetical existence is effectively intuited by some researches - I do not understand how we can identify the set of things 'not in Q' (or indeed 'in Q'). I'd also note that…

Have you tried actually reading the proponents arguments instead of relying on arrogance? That might be a better way to find out why the consensus is what it is.

I have read a fair amount on this subject.

If you could cite some rational sources that describe what you're alluding to, I'd be delighted to read them.

As I noted in a sibling comment, the consensus is Marcan Priority, but a) it's not a huge majority, and b) it's ultimately a tallest dwarf competition anyway.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#156

Post by graemep »

ShamelessC wrote: post #123
defrost wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a large number of camps that don't align about this issue. The King James Only movement alone: asserts the belief that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other translations of the Bible. and has been divided into five subgroups with varying opinions about the text and its relation to God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement This barely scratches the surface of th…

Thanks! Very interesting.

There is a lot of disagreement about even what documents should be in the Bible:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon

and lots of disagreement about translation and interpretation.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#157

Post by vintermann »

bee_rider wrote: post #153

I guess the fact that “big animal through a needle’s eye” was a common expression would make it more obvious. But, without knowing it, I kind of thought the rope phrasing seemed better. Without knowing the expression, “camel through a needle’s eye” sounds a bit fanciful, like there must be some sort of fairy-tale exception or trick to make it work. Edit: for example maybe camel fur can be made into thread? I don’t kn…

> I guess the fact that “big animal through a needle’s eye” was a common expression would make it more obvious.

The article suggests it may not have been a common expression at all until Jesus popularized it: the gospels are the earliest known occurrence of the expression.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#158

Post by vintermann »

Zancarius wrote: post #35
ranprieur wrote: post #24

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.

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 mu…

> 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.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#159

Post by emodendroket »

> The ‘rope’ theory is one of a couple of tactics for softening Jesus’ condemnation of wealth-hoarding.

I don’t see that the message is particularly changed either way. It seems like if I hyperbolically said I had a million things to do or a billion, either way it’s not really like you’d assume one meant I wasn’t all that busy.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#160

Post by emodendroket »

re wrote: post #27
timbit42 wrote: post #22

In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, the word for camel is gamlo (ܓܐܡܠܐ) while the word for rope is gamla (ܓܐܡܠܥ). Mixing these up would be an easy mistake to make. Matthew and Luke both took some info from Mark but also took some info from the Q source and their own sources. Since all three have this same wording, it is likely the error came through Mark.

> In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, the word for camel is gamlo (ܓܐܡܠܐ) while the word for rope is gamla (ܓܐܡܠܥ). The blog author briefly references this Aramaic theory in his post and says that it has been similarly debunked, linking to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf0Fm8aVApk The supposed Aramaic word for rope doesn't appear in any sources until the 10th century CE and is derived at that time fro…

I have to admit that the fact that various commentators suggest THREE different languages happen to have words for camel and rope that sound almost the same does rather bolster the case being made here. Someone want to suggest a seafaring rope known as kyummel or something?
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