Greed
The mouth that cannot be filled — every tradition treats covetousness as a quiet idolatry, a worship that mistakes the gift for the giver.
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife..."
"He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat."
"And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:"
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts."
See this theme as a comparative study.
- The Camel and the Needle
This parallel examines the motif of wealth as a barrier to spiritual attainment across Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions. While Christianity employs the hyperbolic image of a camel passing through a needle's eye to illustrate the impossibility of salvation through riches alone, Judaism and Islam frame the issue through warnings against trust in material accumulation and the sin of hoarding. Buddhism diverges by focusing on the internal mechanism of attachment rather than external economic status, positing that the renunciation of desire is the prerequisite for liberation. Scholars debate whether the needle's eye represents a literal small gate or a rhetorical device for absolute impossibility, a distinction less relevant in the other traditions where the focus remains on the moral hazard of wealth itself.
- Lot and Sodom
Angels visit a righteous man in a wicked city before destroying it. His wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt.
Discussion
No one has written anything here yet. Some places to begin:
- Which verse landed hardest for you?
- What's a counter-text — a verse that complicates this theme?
- How does this theme show up in a tradition not represented here?
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