mark

bible June 15, 2017

Is there any reason to think that Mark 7:19 has a later addition?

This is Mark 7:19 from the NIV:

For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

Every time I see a parenthetical note in an ancient text, I feel like it was a later addition from a scribe.

Does our oldest manuscripts contain that part of the verse? Even it does, is there any reason to believe that it was a later addition?

bible February 22, 2017

What was Jesus referring to by "the eye of the needle"?

What is the opinion on Jesus’s use of the phrase “the eye of a needle” in Mark 10:25:

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 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.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?”—Mark 10:23-26 (ESV)

Could it refer to the small gate which required a camel to unladen and cross through on its knees or could it be an extreme analogy?