Question:  Dear Greg,

            Does anyone know whether or not Jesus was actually referring to a security gate in Jerusalem when he spoke of the “eye of a needle” or was he referring to trying to thread a normal sewing needle with camel hair?  I have always heard it referred to as a security gate in Jerusalem where travelers were required to strip their camels of their belongings and the camels had to enter on their knees.  This gate was built small enough that the camels actually had to crawl through in order to enter the city.  I ran across an interpretation stating the “camel” is camel hair thread and the needle is an actual sewing needle.  I fail to see the second explanation as true because the technology of the age did not seem like it was so advanced that sewing needles could have been made in the form and fashion that they are today (sleek splinters of metal).  I’m just trying to find out which one is correct.

            Katherine

Answer:  Dear Katherine,

            This is an example of reading the Bible in its context, which includes its literary genre and the style that the writer/reader is utilizing.  In his book, “The Humor of Christ”, Elton Trueblood notes that Jesus often employed humor as a linguistic tool against the legalistic literalism of the Pharisees.

            This statement about the needle’s eye and the camel follows, in all three synoptic Gospels, the story of a rich man who asks Jesus how he might enter eternal life.  If what Jesus says is taken literally, not only do we ignore the humor, but also we must assume that only those in abject poverty can enter God’s kingdom of heaven.  So you can see that attempts to find a security gate or a sewing needle miss the point entirely—which is the contrast of a love of materialism and the love of the kingdom (one thinks of the parable of the rich fool in Luke, for example).

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht