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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

#71

Post by Natsu »

kragen wrote: post #55

kjv text for reference > And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear…

In context, the new believers were frequently put out of their homes and sent destitute, so being willing to give it all up was a requirement.

That said, there isn't a whole lot of evidence what is meant here and a rope makes more sense than a camel, because a rich man can become poorer by giving it up just as a rope can be made thinner (by taking away most of the fibers), whereas a camel just can't manage at all.

It wouldn't be too surprising if it was an obscure bit of slang among a less literate group meant for a joke, but there are a few other words that seem to have been coined by gospel writers that have seen lots of litigation, e.g. arsenokoites which seems to echo a construction from Leviticus.

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

#72

Post by doublerabbit »

Nition wrote: post #70

This is a bit of a meta-comment but, there are a great deal of of comments in this thread that say something that's already covered in the article. I've noticed that Hacker News comments do seem to be trending more over time to being from people who only read the title, or at best only skimmed the article. If you go straight to the comments on any news post on Reddit, the discussions usually seem relatively insightfu…

I'm guilty. I'm just here for the comments. I tend to learn more about the subject that way. And if I find the comments confusing I'll then jump to the article.

Partly due to the popup spam on any major media outlet site, even wikipedia with its constant nagging for donations.

Downvotes: Not sure why some HN readers are upset by this comment, I don't have time to read every article or to skim. Especially at work. Reading articles on mobile hurts my eyes, it's easier to get an understanding via comments.

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

#73

Post by timbit42 »

xp84 wrote: post #53
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.

UsefulCharts, is that you? (Kidding, but it also wouldn’t be that shocking)

No, but I'm subscribed.

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

#74

Post by timbit42 »

Jedd wrote: post #43
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.

I think there's enough evidence to suggest that whoever the people that wrote Matthew and Luke were, they were capable of introducing their own errors, along with embellishments, from their source material. Given they wrote in Koine, and exhibit some ignorance of the geography of the area, and almost definitely never met anyone that met Jesus, it's reasonable to assume no spoken Aramaic accounts were part of their so…

Sure, but would they all make the same error? Either there was no error or they all inherited it from another source or Matthew and Luke inherited it from Mark.

There is some evidence in Matthew that it could have originally been written in Aramaic.

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

#75

Post by Zanni »

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.

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.

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

#76

Post by potsandpans »

Nition wrote: post #70

This is a bit of a meta-comment but, there are a great deal of of comments in this thread that say something that's already covered in the article. I've noticed that Hacker News comments do seem to be trending more over time to being from people who only read the title, or at best only skimmed the article. If you go straight to the comments on any news post on Reddit, the discussions usually seem relatively insightfu…

My unsubstantiated hypothesis is that this is a direct correlation to the reddit api changes.

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

#77

Post by Jedd »

booleandilemma wrote: post #64
moolcool wrote: post #5

I always find the "eye of the needle gate" deflection funny, because why would anyone use metaphor that to make such a general point?

You're asking why Jesus, the guy who speaks in parables, would use a metaphor to make a point?

More accurately, the question is why the unknown author of the book of Mark, who never claimed to have first or even second hand accounts of Jesus, used that metaphor in his story.

The subsequent two usages by the anonymous authors of books Luke or Matthew clearly lifted that story from the earlier work - I don't think that's in dispute here.

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

#78

Post by monlockandkey »

Galacta7 wrote: post #60
monlockandkey wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Islam isn't based on Christianity or Judasim. Rather is the the revival/continuation of the one message which is monotheism, given to every prophet and messenger throughout history. It would not be unfound for overlap in teachings between the prophets as they are ultimately upon one religion.

While I perhaps agree in principle, I think it's also fair to say that while Islam isn't strictly based on Christianity or Judaism, it was strongly influenced by both, to the extent that the Qu'ran borrows quite a bit from the New Testament, which in turn borrows heavily from the Hebrew Bible. The overlap is not accidental, but rather intentional in order to provide a sense of credibility in their teachings. In that…

The Qur'an didn't borrow anything, nor was it influenced by the previous religions. The Qur'an is a revelation from God, as was the original Torah to Moses and the Injeel to Jesus. The same accounts of history and messages would be told to the prophets from God.

The claim where Muhammad ﷺ copied from the previous books is simply not possible. An unlettered man narrating and correcting the histories/traditions of the Jews and Christians where they were few and far between in Arabia. It was pagan through and throught. Recounting their history would require a library to be available and be a polyglot in Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek (there were no Arabic Bible translation until the 10th Century).

If the motivation is to gain followers from the prior Abrahamic religions, the easiest thing to do would be to appease their view points and reaffirm what they believed, not to correct them. Not to mention the sheer volume of recounting the children of Israel and history of Jesus in the Qur'an, which does not make sense if you are copying as you would want a few lines here and there to avoid saying something wrong.

(The tone of this comment sounds firm in writing, in reality it is cordial)

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

#79

Post by anonymous_sorry »

rando_dfad wrote: post #44

Huh. I thought the camel/needle's eye thing was about a small narrow gate into Jerusalem. You can get a camel through it, but it needs to get down on its knees and crawl. Apparently, camels don't like to do that. But I've never seen the gate, and don't have strong views on biblical accuracy.

The article tells us that this is not true.

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

#80

Post by Jedd »

timbit42 wrote: post #74
Jedd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's enough evidence to suggest that whoever the people that wrote Matthew and Luke were, they were capable of introducing their own errors, along with embellishments, from their source material. Given they wrote in Koine, and exhibit some ignorance of the geography of the area, and almost definitely never met anyone that met Jesus, it's reasonable to assume no spoken Aramaic accounts were part of their so…

Sure, but would they all make the same error? Either there was no error or they all inherited it from another source or Matthew and Luke inherited it from Mark. There is some evidence in Matthew that it could have originally been written in Aramaic.

I thought it was fairly non-contentious [0] that the authors of Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily (almost exclusively) from the author of Mark's work, along with this unknown source (usually referred to as Q).

It seems fairly reasonable then to assume it was a literary device made by the author of Mark - his writing is actually pretty good as far as allegory goes - that was subsequently lifted near verbatim by the later two authors.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcan_priority

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