Are rich people condemned to hell unless?

[ho_idiotes (Matt)]

For it to be a mistranslation of the Greek, there has to be a solid reason for accepting the textual variant here. I am thoroughly incompetent when it comes to textual criticism, but I believe that one guide is whether a reading is a more difficult reading or not. It would be easy to see a shift to “rope” to get past the awkward idiom, but not so much to move towards “camel” when everyone had always heard “rope” before, and then retain that new expression.
Just looked up in the Center for New Testament Textual Studies: NT Critical Apparatus and there are only two texts with the reading καμιλον: 579 (13th century) and 1424 (9th-10th century).

There were vowel sound shifts during the early centuries AD which would eventually result in the eta and the iota sounding the same - non-Erasmian reconstructed pronunciation schemes tend to differ on whether to pronounce the two letters the same or not for the time the text was originally written. These vowel sound shifts could well explain the variant reading rope.

[Chad_the_Layman (Chad Stewart)]

@Nick

Matthew 19:24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
I interpet this verse as that a rich man is somewhat condemned to hell unless he sells his possessions?

To understand this verse, you have to sort through the whole passage (Matthew 19:16-30) and understand the conversation. Also, it helps to understand this conversation in the context of Jesus’s mission in the book of Matthew and Matthew’s presentation of Jesus as the redeemer, rescuer, priest king that the OT is about.

Pop theology and our embedded religious concepts get in the way. The Bible is not about heaven and hell. It is about new creation. It is about heaven and earth. The storyline is that God created humans and gave them a vocation to partner with him to cultivate the good world God created. And the partnership was to begin at a place where heaven and earth met. The end of the story is a new heavens and earth where the rebellion has been defeated, the results of the rebellion are healed, and the original purpose of creation commences. Humans and God live and work together from a place where heaven and earth meet. When Jesus announces that the “Kingdom of God is at hand” he is announcing that the promised project is moving forward. And the conversation with the rich young man is about Jesus’s invitation to participate in the kingdom that Jesus is inaugurating and that the Hebrew Bible had promised.

The phrases used in the passage “have eternal life”, “enter life”, “if you would be perfect”, “you will have treasures in heaven”, “enter the kingdom of heaven”, “enter the kingdom of God” need to be understood in the context of the story of the Bible rather than in our culturally embedded religious concepts. Jesus is inviting people to come participate, to be part of His project, to participate in his kingdom. The young man considers and then declines. There are other stories about folks considering and declining.

A few notes. Jesus engages with the guy based on his initial questions about “what must I do”. The conversation exposes the one thing that the guy loves too much to leave behind. When the disciples respond to Jesus’s comment about how hard it is for wealthy folks to leave behind riches Jesus says, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”.

I don’t see the passage, in context, without the hinderance of our cultural baggage, saying anything about hell or concluding that “rich” folks can’t participate in Jesus’s kingdom. It says something more like, “love something more than Jesus and it will be hard for you to take up your cross and follow him”, but then, “as hard as it is to forsake all, with God, all things are possible.”

A last note about “hell”. Our cultural understanding hinders us here, as well. The OT talks about the grave. The NT talks about the second death, where the rebellious spiritual beings, death and the grave are destroyed in a “lake of fire” (imagery for sure!) at the end of the age as the new heavens and earth are introduced and the Kingdom is consummated.

That’s my take, which of course, I didn’t come by on my own. And, as at other times, I know I write these things in the presence of Bible scholars here on the forum, whose coaching or comments I welcome.