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The Camel by Rev. Lloyd L. Doub a monk of the Universal Life Church March of 1992 It is with a prayer for divine guidance for my choice of words and a strong conviction that each of us should personally have the chance to find truth for ourselves, that I present this humanly fallible work for your consideration. Let your guided heart and not my perspective define truth! Is there a chance that we living in a western world looking back on things that were said during the live of Jesus may be turning the meanings from truth by how we view both the words and what was said. Let's pick an example and work with just one phrase. "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." Matt. 19:24 KJV When the women of Jesus's day would go to the bazaar to purchase thread for their sewing, they would carry with them the needles they used. This was to test the hand made threads to be sure that they would work. Nothing beats empirical testing with hand made goods. The Aramaic language is a very expressive one. If the thread was too large to fit in a particular woman's needle she might exclaim "This isn't a thread, it is a rope". If we look at the Aramaic word GAMLA we find that it has three meanings. The Aramaic language had fewer words than English does today so there was even a greater tendency to have words with multiple meanings. In the case of GAMLA the three meanings are "a beam", "a rope" and "a camel". In the quote above the meaning of the word GAMLA is determined by the context. The common use of the term may not have been know to King James monks and thereby may have been easy to translate in error. Quoting from Dr. Errico's book Treasures from the Language of Jesus, "Among aramaic-speaking people of the Near east, one might hear people talking about different degrees of friendship, especially when meeting new people. For instance, and Easterner may say, ``When we met it was like a rope passing trough the eye of a needle,'' which means `` we had some difficulty seeing eye to eye.''" Some people relate the passage from Matthew as to passing through a door in the wall of the city. On that view let's look at the words of Dr. Abraham M Rihbany from his book The Syrian Christ: "The walled cities and feudal castles of Palestine, the explanation runs, have large gates. Because of their great size, such gates are opened only on special occasions to admit chariots and caravans. Therefore, in order to give pedestrians thoroughfare, a smaller opening about the size of an ordinary door is make in the center of the great gate, near to the ground. Now this smaller door which a camel cannot pass is the ``eye of the needle.'' However, the chief trouble with this explanation of the ``eye-of-the- needle'' passage is that it is wholly untrue. I never knew that small door tn a city or castle gate to be called a needle's eye. The name of that door, in the common speech of the country is called the PLUM, and this Scriptural passage makes no reference to it whatever." To would seem that Jesus was not trying to say that there was no way for a rich man to go to heaven but more likely that there was difficulty. Had he used the word camel the comment would seem to indicate that there wasn't anyway, which doesn't coincide with the rest of what Jesus taught. To quote again from Dr. Errico: "Jesus was not making it difficult for wealthy people to enter the kingdom. He simply taught that shared wealth brings a common joy to all and can meet the needs of many people." To me this seems much more in-line with the feeling of love taught by Jesus. Here in I have merely defined the task not rendered the truth. Best now I leave you to discern from your own hearts what seem truth to you. I would more support your turning back to source directly as taught by Jesus rather than listening to any man even myself. Light and Love to all, may you find joy in the days that are numbered! Your most humble servant, Brother Love +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Copyrighted by and for Alternatives BBS in March of 1992 + + This maybe copied and reproduced in any form without any + + request if reproduced totally without editing. Thank you + +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ <>

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