Camels and Needles

Let's put this one to bed once and for all, shall we?

When I was a child I remember repeatedly hearing and reading a story about what Jesus had to say on worldly wealth.

The Bible says a wealthy young ruler asked Christ what he needed to do to get into heaven. Christ tells him to keep the commandments. When the young man explains that he already keeps the commandments, Christ tells him to sell his things and give his money to the poor.

The man leaves Jesus at this point because he didn't want to do that. Jesus then states:

"Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:23-24)

As a child I found this story to be fairly self-explanatory. Jesus was explaining that there would not be many rich people in heaven.

When I was teenager, however, I started hearing a new interpretation of this scripture. I recall one of the first times I heard this interpretation. It was during Aaronic Priesthood class on a Sunday, and our instructor (who took many liberties with the doctrine of the church) was reading the aforementioned story from the New Testament. Afterward he stopped and said to us in a conspiratorial tone,

"You might think you know what this scripture means, but you may not know the whole story."

We listened intently, thinking perhaps he was going to reveal to us some hidden knowledge of the scriptures that was beyond our grasp. This is what he told us:

"You see, when Jesus said it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven, he didn't mean it how you might think he meant it. In Jerusalem in those days, there was a main gate into the city. This gate was very narrow. It was so narrow that it was called 'The Needle.' It was too narrow for a camel to walk through it normally. For a camel to pass through, it had to first get down on its knees. Then it had to crawl through this opening on its knees. This opening was called 'The Eye of the Needle,' and this is what Jesus was talking about. It wasn't about money, but more about humility. For a rich man to get into heaven he has to get on his knees, too, and be humble."

This interpretation of the story shocked me when I first heard it. It seemed to change everything that Jesus was trying to say. It felt very wrong to me, and although I had absolutely no proof I wish I would have just called this teacher on his bullshit.


 

And yes, I say bullshit because this isn't some innocent little misunderstanding or mistake in comprehending the scriptures. No, this is willfully changing the meaning of a scripture that he apparently found offensive and/or frightening.

I just remember sitting there feeling this awful sense of dread inside as he "explained" the scripture to us. The whole story about camels and crawling and the "Eye of the Needle" made me feel furious and depressed. I didn't know it then, but I was experiencing the loss of the Holy Ghost. He was withdrawing himself because falsehoods were being taught.

I was too young to say anything in protest, and kept my reservations a secret. I didn't soon forget this story, though, and I noticed it popping up in church discussions for years afterward. I heard it in Sunday School classes, in Priesthood meetings, and most of all I heard it in discussions with other missionaries on my mission. Without fail, when we'd gather in a group and study this story, whether at church or as missionaries, some douchebag would proudly announce, "STOP! I know the REAL meaning of this scripture!" and then proceed to tell the camel-through-the-gateway interpretation while everyone else in class would nod approvingly.

It was on my mission that I finally had a breakthrough in my personality, and I started to tentatively call people on their bullshit (at least when it came to stories passed around in the church). I realized that sources were really important, and most of these types of stories didn't have any. At all. Once in a while you'd get a photocopy of a photocopy in some handout from the mission president's wife or a printout of a forwarded e-mail claiming some kind of authority, but that was usually it.

So I got a little bolder. I started asking people where on earth they heard this interpretation of the story. Most of the time this caught people off guard, and they'd begin to fumble and look guilty. "I heard it in General Conference" was a common answer. I'd ask "Which General Authority taught this? What conference? Where can I look it up?" And most of the time these people would shrug and admit they had no idea. Once in a while you'd get someone who'd defend this camel-gateway viewpoint vehemently, claiming it was from their Patriarch or their father or from a specific book they read. I'd always ask to see the proof in writing. Nobody could ever provide it. They couldn't even provide names of books or articles or anything.

My reasoning against the camel-gate theory was based mostly on my own feelings and observations from the text itself.

First and foremost, this scripture was usually misquoted. You often hear it reported that Jesus said, "It's easier for a camel to PASS through the eye of a needle," when it's actually recorded "It's easier for a camel to GO through the eye of a needle." That's a minor thing, but I feel it is important. The word pass implies passage from one point to another, back and forth. This makes the camel-gate story a little more palatable.

Secondly, this saying is worded slightly differently by Luke. Matthew and Mark record "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle," while Luke writes, "It is easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Does this even read like Jesus was talking about a city gate? At all? If he were referencing a specific gate to the city of Jerusalem wouldn't he have said something along the lines of, "It is easier for a camel to pass through THE eye of the needle" or "to pass through THE needle's eye"? He doesn't specify any particular "needle" here.

Third, why are the apostles so amazed at this saying? The verse following in Matthew states, "When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed..." If Jesus was comparing a rich man entering heaven to a camel entering the city, what was so freakin' amazing about that?!

Fourth, why would a city even build such a stupid narrow entrance? Wasn't Jerusalem a center of commerce in the ancient world? According to the New Testament CES manual, we're talking a city of about 80,000 people at the time of Christ. Traders, caravans, people of all nationalities converged in Jerusalem. There must have been insanely long lines to get through that "Eye of the Needle." Why bother??? I've actually asked proponents of this interpretation this very question, and the response I've received is "the entrance to the city was narrow to discourage thieves from pillaging the city and leaving with the stolen goods." This explanation doesn't really work for me, because according to the little fake story humans can fit through the opening just fine. It's the camels that have to kneel and/or be unburdened first. So basically you'd have to believe that this narrow little entrance into the city was enough to stop thieves riding camels but not thieves who were on foot or had camels waiting for them right outside the city walls.

Fifth, and probably most importantly, I've heard some versions of this story where the key point is not so much that the camel has to "get down on its knees" but that it needs to "unburden itself" of whatever it's carrying to enter the city. So if the camel needed to unburden itself of its material wealth to enter the city, isn't the meaning kind of the same either way? To get in the camel has to rid itself of its material possessions, just as a rich man has to rid himself of his wealth. Of course, the times when I've heard this "unburdening" interpretation taught, the camel's possessions were equated to sins, meaning "to enter heaven a man must unburden himself of his sins." Sure, that's a cute little sentiment there, but it's way off from what Christ was trying to express in that particular story.



It was during my mission that I read Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage, a highly regarded and respected book about the life of Jesus Christ. This book was written in a special room set aside in the Salt Lake Temple, and every chapter was presented for consideration to the Prophet Joseph F. Smith and the Quorum of the Twelve. It's a classic in Latter-day Saint religious literature. If this camel-gate theory was what Jesus really had in mind, I figured Jesus the Christ would be the book to explain it. I got to the section discussing the story of the rich young ruler, and was relieved to find that no mention was made whatsoever of camels passing through city gates that happened to be called "The Needle." I believe Talmage said that Jesus was using a hyperbole (or extreme amplification) to make a serious point about the wealthy, and his apostles were amazed by it.

***

I've compiled here a small collection of quotes, articles and essays that make mention of the camel-gate theory and how it is completely fabricated. I felt inspired to collect these and present them in one place because I still hear the camel-gate theory presented as if it were actual church doctrine. My wife, who is attending Brigham Young University - Idaho, just had a religion professor tell her entire class that the camel-gate theory was the true meaning of Jesus' expression. This guy is a RELIGION PROFESSOR! And he's probably taught this to hundreds, maybe thousands of impressionable students! This isn't just some harmless misunderstanding, either. As I said above, it is a fundamental change in the meaning of Christ's words. He said that very few wealthy people would be allowed to enter into heaven! He didn't say wealthy people who didn't pay their tithes or wealthy people who were greedy; he just said wealthy. Rich. Isn't this something we ought to be talking about more in the church today? But no, instead, we sweep it all under the rug and claim that Jesus didn't really mean it. We claim that he just meant people who were proud or selfish. No, it has nothing to do with money, really. It has more to do with HUMILITY and REPENTANCE.

From Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament: An Illustrated Reference for Latter-day Saints by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Eric D. Hunstman, and Thomas A. Wayment, published by Deseret Book in 2006:

The saying about a camel going through the eye of a needle has nothing to do with a city gate (92).

From Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage, member of the Quorum of the Twelve:

“There was a 'common Jewish proverb, that a man did not even in his dreams see an elephant pass through the eye of a needle' (Edersheim) … proverbs involving comparisons of a kind with that of a camel passing through the eye of a needle are common in the Talmud.”

From the article "Footnotes to the Gospels" by S. Kent Brown, C. Wilfred Griggs, and Thomas W. Mackay, first published in the Ensign, March 1975:

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle” Regarding this, W. F. Albright notes, “In spite of the attempts of commentators and preachers to find small gates, or even camel-hair, in this saying, it seems certain that it is simply a proverb cast in hyperbolic form.” (Matthew, “Anchor Bible,” vol. 26, p. 233.)

From the Jerome Biblical Commentary edited by Raymond Edward Brown:

"...the figure of the camel and the eye of the needle means exactly what is said; it does not refer to a cable or a small gate of Jerusalem."

From “Imitation Gospels and Christ's Book of Mormon Ministry” by Richard Lloyd Anderson of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship:

The unhistorical "eye of the needle" gate is described, with the physically implausible act of the camel inching through it on his knees.

From “The Camel and the Eye of the Needle” by Daniel McClellan, LDS professor of religion and Oxford graduate:

This interpretation, however, is not without criticism. The most glaring problem is that no gate designed for camels, or small enough to force them to their knees, has ever been uncovered in Jerusalem, nor has the practice ever been attested. In addition, the apostles display utter shock at the idea, which precludes the possibility of a contemporary proverbial understanding of the phrase. In other words, the apostles were unaware of any camel's gate in Jerusalem. The idea is currently understood to have originated with two writers from the 9th century CE, Paschasius Radbertus and Walafrid Strabo.

From the web site BiblicalHebrew.com:

Luke clears this up, by carefully using the Greek word for a surgeon's needle, nullifying this interpretation ...The needle in Matthew and Mark is a rafic. In Luke it is a belone. Both are synonyms for needles used in sewing, but Luke's is more likely to be used by a surgeon than a seamstress.

From the book Approaching Zion by LDS scholar and professor Hugh Nibley:

The Lord did not say, "Wait a minute, fellow. Perhaps we can work something out here." So the young man went away sorrowfully. And the Lord let him go sorrowfully, then turned to the apostles and said (this is the point), "I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24).

We are told that the apostles were amazed beyond measure when he told them that. They didn't know about any postern gates through which a camel comes. That's an invention of modern-day criticism. There is no evidence anywhere at all that there was a gate called "The Eye of the Needle." No, Jesus really meant it: It's impossible.

…

[His] disciples marveled greatly at this, for they had never heard of that convenient postern gate, invented by an obliging nineteenth-century minister for the comfort of his well-heeled congregation—the ancient sources knew nothing of that gate, and neither did the baffled apostles. (That is another "para-scripture.") 

***

So can we put this one to bed, please? The next time I have to listen to this camel-gate theory spouted off in church, I'm going to make a point to call it bullshit and I'm also going to make it a point to ask the person spouting it why they are doing so. I want to hear them say that it's because they don't believe Jesus meant what he said, because that's what they're thinking.