And Slaters Go Plop

There is a parable in the Bible that goes something along the lines of “it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”.

Originally written in Greek, the word for ‘camel’ is κάμηλον. Interestingly, the Greek word for ‘rope’ is κάμιλον.

κάμηλον
κάμιλον

See the similarity? I’m thinking that the word ‘rope’ makes sense in the context of difficult things to thread through the eye of a needle. Especially because things like ropes (i.e. thread) can go through the eye of a needle.

I remember hearing an explanation for this long ago that the ‘eye of the needle’ was actually a gate in the wall of a city and that the camels entering this gate would have to shuffle through on their knees – a nice analogy of humility – but now I’m wondering if someone just made this up in order to cover for what is an odd-ball parable because of a mistranslation.

Any Greek scholars out there? Is this odd parable the result of a simple mistranslation?