camel to go through the eye of a needle - Matthew, Mark and Luke - rope or cable

Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Matthew 19:24 (AV)
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.

Mark 10:25 (AV)
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.

Luke 18:25 (AV)
For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...-mark-and-luke-rope-or-cable.5789/#post-24466

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...n-krans-lists-as-conjectural-emendation.4935/

 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Facebook - New Testament Textual Criticism
James Alfred Wenske
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10161635058792693/

There’s an interesting book that I picked up at the Shiner library, Jesus, Son of Man, by Rudolf Augstein. He comments on Mark 10:25, writing “Ben-Chorin thinks it is not a camel (κάμηλος) that will go more easily through the needle’s eye, but a rope (κάμιλος).” (268) It’s an interesting thought, the saying originally involving a rope, and a copyist mistaking the word for camel. Imagine the scene: You’re living in the first century, trying to illustrate how difficult it is for rich people to enter the Kingdom, and you visualize a needle’s eye…. Wouldn’t a rope come to mind more naturally than a camel? The thought process might go something like “Needle’s eye. Now what goes through a needle’s eye? Thread. And an upscaled thread–that’s what a rope is, basically–isn’t going through too easily.” All of this is to say there’s no immediately obvious relationship between a needle’s eye and a camel, and it just so happens to be the case that another similar-looking word fits in its place naturally. I think it’s at least plausible that the saying as we have it in the Synoptics is the result of a copyist’s mistake. If so, it would have occurred early in the textual transmission stage or else we’d have extant manuscripts with the saying in its earlier form.
Something similar happened when I was a long-term substitute at a high school. I assigned a worksheet on the book we were reading as a class, and one of the questions was something like “What did the old man use to fend off the sharks?” I received many written responses with “car handle,” which made no sense in the context of the book, while other students had correctly written “oar handle,” so I said to myself “I wonder if I can find the source of this discrepancy. Maybe there’s a paper with an ‘o’ that isn’t completely closed, and a copyist mistook it for a ‘c.’” Sure enough, I found it. (And yes, there was probably some cheating at play, but sometimes we allow students to help each other.)
Of course, we don’t have first century copies of The Gospel of Mark neatly stacked inside a classroom, so the best we can do is speculate about the early textual transmission. Maybe there was no textual corruption of “rope,” and the saying involved a camel from the beginning. It’s a strange visualization, a camel going through a needle’s eye, but then again the human mind is wonderfully strange. At the end of the day, the saying as we have it in the Synoptics is more memorable and visually striking than what Ben-Chorin alleges was originally in the Markan text.
On a somewhat unrelated topic, I’ll close by calling attention to the fact that the English version of Rudolf’s book is prefaced by Gore Vidal (R.I.P.), and I’m something of a fan of his, especially this quote: “It’s not enough that I succeed. Others should fall.”

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Steven Avery
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11404207692/posts/10161635058792693/?comment_id=10161636516537693

Steven Avery
Constantine Simonides tried to make this connection.
The Homilist (1864)
https://books.google.com/books?id=fycEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA15
1786336166798.png


May be an image of text
 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Peter Gainsford
The Camel, the Rope and the Needle's Eye (2023)
https://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2023/11/camel.html

References
  • Caspari, C. P. 1890. Briefe, Abhandlungen und Predigten aus den zwei letzten Jahrhunderten des kirchlichen Alterthums und dem Anfang des Mittelalters. Oslo [‘Christiania’]. [Internet Archive: 1 2 3]
  • Dagron, G.; Feissel, D. 1987. Inscriptions de Cilicie. Paris.
  • Henry, A. M. 2022. ‘The camel and needle: did scholars mistranslate Jesus’s famous saying?’ ReligionForBreakfast. [YouTube]
  • İnal, O. 2020. ‘One-humped history: the camel as historical actor in the late Ottoman Empire.’ International Jounal of Middle East Studies 53: 57–73. [DOI]
  • Kessler, A. 1999. Reichtumskritik und Pelagianismus. Die pelagianische Diatribe de divitiis: Situierung, Lesetext, Übersetzung, Kommentar. Freiburg/Fribourg (Switzerland).
  • Khalil, S. 1978. ‘Note sur le fonds sémitique commun de l’expression “un chameau passant par le trou d’une aiguille”.’ Arabica 25: 89–94. [JSTOR]
  • Klostermann, E. 1941. Origenes Werke. Zwölfter Band. Origenes Matthäuserklärung iii. Fragmente und Indices. Erste Hälfte. (Griechischen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte). Leipzig. [Internet Archive]
  • McCollum, A. C. 2015. ‘A camel or a rope in the eye of a needle? The Old Georgian witness.’ hmmlorientalia (23 Jul 2015).
  • Metzger, B. M.; Ehrman, B. D. 2005. The text of the New Testament. Its transmission, corruption, and restoration, 4th ed. Oxford.
  • Neumann, K. J. 1880. Iuliani imperatoris librorum contra Christianos quae supersunt. Leipzig. [Internet Archive]
  • Pirtea, A. C. 2021. ‘To pass a rope through the eye of a needle: the influence of Byzantine catenae and homiliaries on the Greek, Church Slavonic, and Old Romanian readings of Matthew 19,24.’ In: Jouravel, A.; Mathys, A. (eds.) Wort- und Formenvielfalt. Festschrift für Christoph Koch zum 80. Geburtstag. Berlin. 327–352. [Academia.edu]
  • Potts, D. T. 2004. ‘Camel hybridization and the role of Camelus bactrianus in the ancient Near East.’ Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 47.2: 143–165. [JSTOR]
  • Reuss, J. 1957. Matthäus-Kommentare aus der griechischen Kirche. Berlin. [Internet Archive]
  • Reynolds, G. S. 2020. ‘Biblical turns of phrase in the Quran.’ In: Elias, J. J.; Orfali, B. (eds.) Light upon light. Essays in Islamic thought and history in honor of Gerhard Böwering. Leiden/Boston. 45–69.
  • Zahn, Th. 1922. Kommentar zur Neuen Testament. Band I: das Evangelium des Matthäus, 4th ed. Leipzig/Erlangen. [Internet Archive]
  • Ziemińska, A. 2022. ‘The origin of the “Needle’s Eye Gate” myth: Theophylact or Anselm?’ New Testament Studies 68: 358–361. [DOI]


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reddit
Could the famous parable of Jesus saying that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle... have been mistranslated?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBi...d_the_famous_parable_of_jesus_saying_that_it/

Peter Gainsford
There's more than just those two arguments actually! -- at least in principle, though it's the Aramaic and the Greek ones that are best known.
1. Argument from Aramaic -- that the passage uses a hellenised spelling of Aramaic *gml. As others have pointed out, the ReligionForBreakfast video disposes of this nicely, showing that the evidence for it is very late. I don't recall now whether Henry shows that it's derived from Greek usage; the other arguments below are.
2. Argument from Arabic -- a less popular tactic, but a similar idea: that jamal in Quran 7:40 is an error for a hypothetical word *jummal 'rope'. The consensus is that *jummal is a lexicographical fiction, based on the definition invented by Cyril of Alexandria for the fictional Greek word kamilos. Reynolds' chapter in the Gerhard Böwering festschrift (Light upon light. Essays in Islamic thought and history, 2020) is a handy link to more detailed arguments disposing of this.
3. Argument from Armenian and Georgian -- a still less popular theory, based on the fact that the corresponding passages in Armenian and pre-Athonite Georgian versions use terms that unambiguously mean 'rope'. A 2015 piece by Adam McCollum covers the relevant evidence and shows that the relevant evidence is all derived from Greek and not independent evidence. Which leaves ...
4. Argument from Greek. This is the one that I tackled, because the evidence here is the earliest, and because I hadn't seen it dealt properly anywhere -- most arguments actively shy away from discussing the purported Greek word kamilos. It's perfectly clear that all the Greek evidence for a supposed word kamilos 'rope' is derived from Cyril of Alexandria, and this accounts for at least the Arabic, Armenian, and Georgian evidence, since they all repeat Cyril's definition. And Henry shows that the Aramaic word is much later still. For published treatments of the Greek evidence, the best I know (other than my blog post) is Zahn's 1922 NT commentary, which doesn't labour the point, but at least shows that all the Greek evidence goes back to Cyril.
The upshot is that there was no such Greek word (until Cyril made it up), and the alleged parallels in other languages are based on Cyril's made-up definition. But I agree with you that a full published treatment ought to deal with all four of the above arguments.

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purebible
e is a Talmud reference that is translated as an elephant.
Talmud - Berakhot 55b https://www.sefaria.org/Berakhot.51b.11?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en
Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan said:... How will you know the thoughts of your heart? By their being revealed to you in a dream. Rava said: Know that this is the case, for one is neither shown a golden palm tree nor an elephant going through the eye of a needle in a dream. In other words, dreams only contain images that enter a person’s mind.
The Talmud reference is mentioned, more or less, by Constantine Simonides in his 1864 Periplus of Hannon, p. 50.
Steven Avery
researcher
Dutchess County, NY USA
 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Talmud - Berakhot 55b
https://www.sefaria.org/Berakhot.54a.8?lang=bi

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥmani said that Rabbi Yonatan said: A person is shown in his dream only the thoughts of his heart when he was awake, as evidenced by what Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, as it is stated: “As for you, O king, your thoughts came upon your bed, what should come to pass hereafter” (Daniel 2:29). And if you wish, say instead that it is derived from here, a related verse: “And that you may know the thoughts of your heart” (Daniel 2:30). How will you know the thoughts of your heart? By their being revealed to you in a dream. Rava said: Know that this is the case, for one is neither shown a golden palm tree nor an elephant going through the eye of a needle in a dream. In other words, dreams only contain images that enter a person’s mind.


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Constantine Simonides
Periplus
books.google.com

The periplus of Hannon [ed. and tr. by K. Simonides.].

books.google.com

“ MJlYXR MJlNDROBIPT.
‘“It i8 easier for a cable to go through the eye of a needle,' etc.
“ The manner in which Dr. Simonides supposes napmXm to have been substituted for umXm would require too long an explanation. He has found the reading in other ancient manuscripts, and in one the same reading in the parallel passage of St Luke. Many modern interpreters had suspected that this was the tense of the passage, and Messrs. Liddell and Scott go so far as to say that the word xi/tuX*, rope, though found in Suidas, was probably an invention to support the notion. But it is curious that this reading in the Mayer manuscript should support the hypothetical interpretation, though by a different word.

The Talmudists say that the separation of the soul from the body it at difficult at the pottage of a rope through the eye of a needle.

Mahommed also says, in the Koran, that it will be sb difficult for those who deny bis doctrine to enter heaven as for a rope to past through the eye of a needle.
“ Chap. xxvii., verses 10, 17.*

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b-greek (1996)
David L. Moore
Babylonian Talmud has a similar expression to the hyperbole used in Mat. 19:24. Only it employs the figure of an elephant passing through the eye of a needle - the largest animals in Babylon being elephants and in Israel, camels (BT Berakoth 55b, as cited in EBC, vol. 8, D. A. Carson, _Matthew_, p. 425; and GNC, Robert H. Mounce, Matthew_, p. 187).
 
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