this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2024
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Golden rule (lemmy.world)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

why say it after telling a man to sell his possessions and give it to the poor. Jesus literally telling rich people to stop being rich to go to heaven and you think he's talking about a gate?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

From the article you linked:

The "Eye of the Needle" has been claimed to be a gate in Jerusalem, which opened after the main gate was closed at night. A camel could not pass through the smaller gate unless it was stooped and had its baggage removed. The story has been put forth since at least the 11th century and possibly as far back as the 9th century. However, there is no widely accepted evidence for the existence of such a gate.

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

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.