The Eye of a Needle and a Camel

“For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:25)

A simple reading of this text does not create any problems. Any person who understands hyperbole recognizes that Jesus is simply teaching that no person is able to be saved while relying on his wealth. To make this point he uses the biggest known animal in that area and the smallest opening—the eye of a needle.

However, there is another persistent interpretation of this text in Christian circles that says that the eye of a needle refers to a small, narrow gate in Jerusalem. In order to pass through it, a camel would have to be unloaded and put on its knees to make it through. This is interesting and even overlaps with some illustrations of repentance, but there is one important thing to note—this gate did not exist!

This is where an important principle comes up about interpreting biblical texts. What resources do you use? Perhaps even more importantly, what resources were used by the commentary authors that we read? Is it possible to trace the origin of this interpretation of the text? These are a lot of questions and since we are limited in space, I’ve added a couple links at the bottom of this article by people who’ve done a deep study and looked at the primary sources to figure out where this interpretation came from.

The two earliest mentions of this theory that the eye of the needle refers to a gate come from Anselm of Canterbury (11^th century) and Thomas Aquinas in his work Catena Aurea (13^th century). For over one thousand years there was no mention of this interpretation in any archeological and theological works and commentaries! How did people normally understand this? As a simple eye of a needle and a simple camel!

Besides this, there are no archeological confirmations of this gate. All the existing gates, and there are several, have been named “the eye of a needle” after Anselm. We need to be careful with the sources we get our information from. Unfortunately, this is a poor example where someone copied someone else without his own thorough investigation. Ultimately this resulted in a whole theology where in order to enter the kingdom of God, one must just merely “crouch down.”

Coming to a close, we must admit that this is a difficult text. This text destroys many stereotypes both in our time and in Jesus’ time. If at that time wealth signified that a person was approved by God and was one of the indicators of His favor, then today also wealth and materialism have become part of the Christian world where love toward money has long ago taken the place of love toward God. Beloved, we need to clearly understand that an attachment to materialism and a love of money will not allow us to be part of God’s kingdom!

https://classictheology.org/2021/10/12/through-the-eye-of-an-actual-needle-the-fake-gate-theory/

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/origin-of-the-needles-eye-gate-myth-theophylact-or-anselm/51F6B1FD504C36C42D6201F6D87F83C3

⁹ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,

¹⁰ so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 

¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,

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  • Worship Service in English at 11:15 AM