石井医院の売上げが低いのは、キリスト教のせい──だと言ったら、半分は冗談であるが、半分は真実である。幼稚園に入園した4才の頃からキリストの話を聞かされ、ミサの後に絵本を使って、聖書物語を読んだりしていた。当時の私自身の素朴な疑問としては、2000年前に処刑された人が救い主だと言われても全然ぴんとこなかった。
聖書の中に“金持ちが天国に入るのは、ラクダが針の穴の中を通るよりも難しい” と言う記述があった。4歳の頃から小中学校までその話を何回も聞かされ、“そうか金持ちになると天国に行けないんだ。金持ちになったら地獄行きなんだ”と洗脳されていた。幼少期における洗脳と言うものは、大人になってもなかなか抜けないもので開業してからも欲をかきすぎて小銭を貯めようとすると神様が見ていて、後々悪いことが起こるような気がして、あまり売り上げにはこだわらなかった。また自分自身に経営のセンスがなかったというのが最も大きな原因だとは思っている。
2
聖書にある“ラクダが針の穴を通る”と言う一節があるが、聖書学者の中には、誤訳の可能性があると言う意見もある。イエスがいた当時のユダヤ人社会は、多言語社会で古代ヘブライ語の他、イエスの出身地 ナザレの古代シリア語(アラム語)を話していた可能性もある。その後、聖書はギリシャ語やラテン語に翻訳されて現在に至っている。翻訳を繰り返すうちに、間違った表現が出てくるのは当然のことかもしれない。本当は、ラクダではなくラクダのロープではないかと言うのが一部の学者の意見である。
この意見はなんとなく、納得できるような気がする。ラクダを引っ張るロープなら針の穴を通す糸と形状が似ているし、全体として話の辻褄が合うような気がする。ラクダのロープなら、何とか努力すれば、地獄行きが天国行きに変わるかもしれない。
1
If I were to say that the reason why Ishii Clinic's profits are low is because of Christianity, I'd actually only be half joking. I first began hearing about the story of Christ when I entered preschool at the age of 4, and after attending mass I would read bible stories in the form of picture books. At the time the only doubt that my naive young self had was that I couldn't understand how someone that was executed 2000 years ago could be the savior.
There's a saying in the bible: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." From 4 years old and through elementary and middle school I heard that saying many times. "I see, if I become rich then I won't get to heaven." That's what I'd become indoctrinated to believe. The thing about indoctrination during childhood is that it's hard to break even as an adult, so after opening my business I felt that being greedy and saving every penny would catch god's attention and lead to misfortune in the future, so I didn't focus much attention on profits. Plus there was also the fact that I just straight up didn't have much in the way of business sense, which was probably the main cause of my financial misfortune.
2
While there is a passage in the bible about a camel passing through the eye of a needle, some bible scholars are of the opinion that this passage is a mistranslation. Society during the time of Jesus Christ was multilingual, so in addition to ancient Hebrew, the ancient Syriac (Aramaic) language was also spoken in Christ's hometown of Nazareth, and it's possible this was the language he spoke. Since then, the bible has been translated into Greek & Latin, and now in the present day we find ourselves at the point that the bible has been translated and retranslated so many times now that it's only natural that mistranslated phrases would show up. Some scholars are of the opinion that the phrase isn't referring to a camel, but rather a camel's rope.
This theory makes sense to me. A rope that pulls a camel sounds more like something that would pass through the eye of a needle, and the story seems to make sense on the whole. If it's supposed to be a camel's rope, then maybe with a little effort someone heading for hell can make the changes needed to be heaven bound.
