In Mark 10:25 we find ourselves in the larger context of Jesus' confrontation with the so-called Rich Young Ruler. He likely belonged "to the aristocratic, landowning elite of Perea, which was ruled by Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee." This can be seen from the fact that Luke calls him a "ruler" (archōn; Luke 18:18) and that Mark describes him as a person of great wealth (Mark 10:22)[1]. His wealth, however, contrary to the common view of riches as a sign of God's blessing[2], was to prove an obstacle to his entry into the kingdom of God.
In response to his question: "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17), Jesus, after a brief dialogue, points him to his greatest obstacle, namely his possessions (Mark 10:21). Jesus calls him to a radically different way of life by joining "the wandering group of Jesus' closest disciples, with their shared resources and their dependence on the material support of others"[3]. The rich young ruler, however, was not willing to do this, and Mark tells us that his many possessions were the reason, and so he went away. Jesus used this opportunity to establish a general teaching about wealth. "Far from being the advantage the world assumes, possessions are in themselves an obstacle to entering the kingdom of God."[4]
To illustrate the difficulty of entering the kingdom of God, Jesus now employs an epigram in verse 25 to convey precisely the impossibility apart from God's intervention (Mark 10:27):
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.
This represents a Jewish proverb to describe an impossibility. The camel lends itself here as the largest animal native to Palestine for such a proverb; Babylonian Jews spoke instead of an elephant[5]. Conversely, there was no smaller opening than the "eye of a needle (rhaphis), used for sewing"[6]. It is impossible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and that is precisely the point of the proverb.
Some, however, attempt to explain this instead by reference to an alleged gate in Jerusalem which was supposedly called the Eye of the Needle. It is explained that "the Eye of the Needle" was the name for a small wicket gate within the large double gate of the city wall. A pedestrian could pass through it without the large gate having to be opened, but for a camel the large gate would normally have had to be opened. To get through the Eye of the Needle, the camel would have had to kneel down and have its loads removed in order to be let through. This interpretation is traced by Witherington to a commentator in the 9th century[7], by Schnabel to Theophylact in the 11th century[8], and was probably only popularized in the 19th century[9]. For the existence of such a gate at the time of Jesus that was called the Eye of the Needle, however, there is not a single piece of evidence. France writes fittingly: "There is not the slightest evidence for this identification. The door has never been called the Needle's Eye in any language and is not so called today. Even worse than the lack of evidence for this conjecture, however, is its effect in undermining the real point of the proverb. What Jesus presented as ludicrously impossible is turned into a vague possibility: the rich person might, with sufficient unloading and enough humility, just possibly squeeze through. That was not the point of Jesus' proverb, and that is not how the disciples understood it (v. 26)."[10] Keener likewise writes: "Those who believe that Jesus here merely refers to a gate in Jerusalem called the 'Needle's Eye' are mistaken; the alleged 'Needle's Eye' gate was not built until the Middle Ages."[11]