Eye of needle

[visionary]

Some say the needle's eye, or the eye of the needle, was a small gate at the entrance of Jerusalem and other cities. When the city-keepers had locked the main gates, camels and their owners who arrived after hours could squeeze through this gate. But scholars have searched in vain to find ancient evidence that people referred to any of these gates as the eye of a needle.

Camel means rope? Others have said the Aramaic word for camel was the same as the word for rope, and that Jesus meant it was hard for rope to go through the eye of a needle. Well, Jesus did speak Aramaic, but again, reliable evidence is weak that this is what He meant.

Such explanations downplay the wonderfully memorable and clever illustration that Jesus came up with to teach the difficulty of getting into Heaven if you are loaded with loot. He was talking to the rich young ruler at the time, and the man was sad at hearing this because he was very rich. He would hardly have been sad knowing that camels always got through the city gate. And he would hardly be sad knowing that anyone could untwist a piece of rope to thread it through the eye of a sewing needle.

So what is the "eye of the needle" in the Bible?

 

[visionary]

You can imagine Yeshua rolling his eyes, hands raised in open gesture, and saying, 'oi vey! 'tis easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than for the rich to get into heaven' It is a typical overstatement to make a point.

You can imagine the same scene with Nicodemus talking to Yeshua: 'oi vey, my son, you want that I go back into my mother's womb and come out again!'

There are others, too, where there is no theological meaning - just typical reactions which you would probably hear today in gatherings of Jews.