Christians are so desperate to ignore Christ that they literally made up a gate that they called The Eye of the Needle and said that's what Christ was talking about. This gate, which definitely never existed and was not at all what Christ was referring to, was supposedly a bit narrower than other gates and a camel could get through it if it was only carrying a moderate amount of wealth rather than an extreme amount.
I talked to one of the authors of the New American Bible, who told me the text is a mistranslation, and it's more like "harder than putting a rope through the eye of a needle", which would've been an idiom familiar to the fishers in the area.
It means "impossible", which is suitable because the things Jesus called for you to do make a rich person into a not rich person, as far as material wealth goes.
According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, this interpretation "dates back to the fifth century and suggests that kamelos, the Greek word for camel, should actually be read as kamilos, which denotes a rope or a ship’s anchor cable. ... However, most scholars reject this interpretation because the meager textual evidence most likely can be attributed to speculations about this verse by some church fathers (Origen, Cyril of Alexandria; see Fitzmyer, Luke, 1204; Barclay, Matthew, 239)."
They also disagree with the gate interpretation, saying that "Scholars have found no historical foundation for this view, and no evidence supports the existence of such a small gate in Jerusalem’s walls."
I'd be curious to see some actual source on that. Shit like that happens all the time and I find it fascinating.
You can defeat Jesus on technicalities. This is why it's always important to have a lawyer write your holy books.
TIL.
camel?
You don't need the saws, just a big enough pressure difference. Google explosive decompression or the Buford dolphin accident
I figured Delta-P would be good enough as well... I had just picked a suitable meme for all to enjoy. Y'all Lemmings are smart cookies!
Whilst I enjoy the design with saw blades for added gratuitous violent exterior, being technically correct on the internet just trumps that. It's simple aesthetics mate.
So are you suggesting we should grind up and forcibly extrude rich people through a small tube into a container devoid of air? I'm open to this idea.
This is terrible design. You'd want it oriented vertically (gravity is basically free energy!) And some unacceptable loss-of-camel may occur due to circular saw use instead of a complementary-conical camel-squisher.
Given the amount of force and level of violence it would take to make that happen, I'd think the needle would get destroyed or pushed out of place pretty quickly.
You'd need to embed the needle halfway through the tube, and it would have to be flush with the rest of the tube. And it'd need to be a thick ass tube.
You're also going to need to strain the bones and cartilage out, and pulp them.
It might be easier just to pick up a camel juicer and gravity feed the camel juice through the needle.
Camel juicers are too expensive nowadays though. It's better to build it yourself.
Without getting too /r/atheism, it is funny to see the lengths many Christian scholars will go to try and justify that line.
“Oh, well they were probably actually referring to this giant arch that might have once been translated as “the eye of the needle”, meaning that they were saying it’s really easy to get into heaven”
Like what the fuck? What do you guys think is the point of the passage then?
And these aren’t like yokels and grifters. They’re like PhDs in Christian Theology. The religion at a point is just almost entirely concerned with making up translations and it literally always has been
Especially when the next couple of verses explains it.
Christians love to do this thing where they pretend each verse, taken completely out of context, stands on its own. Seems to be especially popular with American evangelicals.
In fact, they like to think that the verses only make sense out of context. No matter how many other verses you can cite across multiple books where Christ makes it clear He's commanding you to abandon the idea of worldly, material possessions and dedicate yourself and your wealth to helping other people and spreading the word, they'll go "No it was just a gate" and keep not doing what Christ told them to while pretending to be Christians.
Yeah, it's pretty unambiguous. Jesus tells the rich boy that came to him to give away all their possessions and let the Lord clothe them as he does the birds and flowers. Rich boy gets real sad and goes away.
Kind of how they only focus on half of the definition of Gluttony and ignore how it also means excessive Greed.
Which is besides the point because Greed is already one of the deadly sins in it's own right.
And these aren’t like yokels and grifters.
They’re not?
No. Many of them aren’t. I get the jab, but I think reducing everyone who has strange or perplexing, even illogical views to just being “an idiot or a grifter” isn’t productive.
Ah right - they're the griftees, having paid a fuckton of money for a PhD in "Christian Theology."
He said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for rich people to go to heaven.
Dank and based Christian memes calling out hypocrisy from religious political factions?
Thoughtful discussions on faith in the comments without immediately devolving into a bashing-all-faiths circlejerk?! On LEMMY?
And that's how we made Reddit obsolete.
There's still some bitterness around here, but I'm glad there's room for talk and respect. Love you all. ❤️
(Christian Anarchist here, if anyone cares)
Cult-dropout here. I care.
I'm so happy you made it out, friend, and I hope things are better for you now, and others follow in your footsteps.
Thank you for caring. :)
Jesus warned his followers to beware wolves in sheep's clothing, only there to prey upon the flock from within.
So who else would they be besides con artist preachers?
Evangelicals call it "prosperity gospel" and it's a total perversion of Jesus' teachings. Basically, it claims that rich people deserve to be rich because their wealth is proof that they have God's favor. It's used to explain away why preachers are allowed to own private jets, yachts and diamond mines.
Considering I know that Jesus asked his followers to give up earthly possessions to join him, I don't trust those con artists pretending to be God on earth. God wouldn't favor people doing the opposite of what he sent his son down to preach.
Shaking hands with St. Peter, slipping him a crisp $20: I think everything's all set here, don't you Pete? C'mon, open up those big beautiful pearly gates.
They should just release a version of the Bible word for word, except the title of the book would be "Liberals Guide to Life", and watch them all go crazy over the nutty stuff in there.
Grew up with this stupid interpretation that it refers to some small gate in Jerusalem that camels had to bend down to use or something.
Jesus literally gives the answer in the next sentence:
”Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” He replied, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”“ Luke 18:25-27 NRSV
God can save anyone. And my layman’s interpretation on top of it, no man can save himself.
God can save anyone.
Well yeah, but if you're a Christian you believe that it's literally God telling you that you can't be rich and go to heaven. God may make an exception, but it would be just as absurd for you to count on being an exception to this rule as it would be for you to count on being the exception to the rule that "none come to the father but through me". If you're rich, you're just as damned as if you were never Christian to begin with.
Also Evangelicals: No, no, why do you bring up the Pope, we're talking about CHRISTIANS, not CATHOLICS.