…it is simply impossible to be rich and enter the kingdom.

It’s useful to consider the entire episode. In Matthew-

Then someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. Also, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “I have kept all these;[c] what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money[d] to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 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.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, “Then who can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”

Then Peter said in reply, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or[e] children or fields for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold[f] and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

I was brought up to believe that v26 was saying that, in effect, it’s ok to be rich because god can save anyone! But of course in context it means precisely the opposite. Curious how often religious interpretation consists of rationalizing the original sense of the passage to adjust to later sensibilities. Simply impossible of course for contemporary American Christians to internalize the concept that riches are bad. They supported a candidate whose only qualification seemed to be that his riches made him somehow closer to the heart of reality than the rest of us.

The passage that mystified me growing up though was the record of the astonishment of the disciples to Jesus original statement. The disciples were poor people. Surely there would have been some sort of resentment for the rich. Wherefore the astonishment that the rich couldn’t be saved? Later I learned that the dominant ideology of the day was that riches and material wealth were interpreted as signs of righteousness and blessings from God. Conversely poverty was seen as a kind of judgment. How this illumines the disciples response to Jesus! And isn’t this precisely the attitude Americans have today? Material success is a sign of favor and poverty is a kind of judgement?

I take it from his comments about his new book on Jesus’ ethics that Prof Ehrman plans to highlight the irony of all this.