There is a gate in Jerusalem called the “eye of the needle”, through which a camel could not pass unless it stooped down and had all its baggage first removed. After dark, when the main gates were closed, travelers and merchants would have to use this smaller gate. Great sermon material, with illustrations about how we must humble ourselves and remove our baggage before entering the kingdom.
It would be quite convenient if this myth were true because it would legitimize people’s affinity for money and probably the prosperity gospel as well. If the passage is about baggage and humility and not actually about wealth then the prosperity preachers can breathe a big sigh of reliefr However, this myth has been propagated since the 11th century and it is completely made up. There is zero evidence to show that this gate ever existed other than stories brought back from Jerusalem tours.
But what about the image to the left showing the eye of the needle? This wall passage did not exist when Jesus walked the earth, or anytime close to his generation. This wall was built hundreds of years after Jesus’ time. The gates of Jerusalem were destroyed in 70CE and later rebuilt. Josephus, the 1st century Jewish historian, wrote about the wall in Jerusalem (excepting the western wall):
“All the rest of the wall [surrounding Jerusalem], it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited.”
So the image above would not exist in Jesus’ time.
