Wyrdsmyth

Mathhew 21: 18-19:

The next day, as they were coming back from Bethany, Jesus was hungry. He saw in the distance a fig tree covered with leaves, so he went to see if he could find any figs on it. But when he came to it, he found only leaves, because it was not the right time for figs. Jesus said to the fig tree, "No one shall ever eat figs from you again!"

And his disciples heard him.

If a friend of mine did this, I would seriously question his sanity.

It's a perplexing passage, for a number of reasons. For one thing, it seems like evidence against the idea that Jesus was perfect. He loses his temper in other passages (which could also be taken as evidence he is not absolutely perfect), but in this passage, it's not just that he loses his temper -- he's angry with vegetation. It has always made me think of this line by Starbuck in Moby Dick: "Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." Or maybe, it is more accurate to say, the line in Moby Dick has always reminded me of Jesus cursing the fig tree.

It's perplexing that this passage was included in this Gospel, if the intent was to testify to his godhood and perfection. It's also perplexing that the last line was added, as if the writer is pre-emptively responding to a challenge. You don't believe me? His disciples all heard him, too -- so ask any of them. It was weird, man... Jesus was, like, really losing it. Over a fig tree. Seriously, dude.

Later, they see the fig tree again (Matthew 21:20-22) and it is dead. And Jesus goes into his speech about "whoever tells this hill to get up and throw itself in the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will happen, it will be done for him." Presumably, that was the point of cursing the fig tree: Jesus was demonstrating the power of faith. Evidently, if I'm interpreting this correctly, Jesus is saying that power over the material world is directly related to a total absence of doubt.

Still, I can't help but feel sorry for the poor fig tree. This is a passage that I've always found disturbing. It just seems uncharacteristically vindictive, and not at all a picture of a "gentle, loving god." I keep picturing the little fir tree in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Couldn't Jesus have equally demonstrated this power of faith by causing it to bear figs out of season?

Citsonga

Seems a tad insane to me too.

Another perplexing aspect of this silly story is that Jesus had to go up to it to see if it had any figs on it, despite it being out of season and Jesus supposedly being divine.

Beyond that, if he could multiply bread and fish, couldn't he have made figs rapidly appear on it? Indeed that would have "equally demonstrated" his "power of faith."

Lord, forgive me for having believed these silly Bible stories in years past....

figuer

It is perplexing that such a story was not eliminated from the Bible, until observed that Jesus' incoherent and despotic behaviour towards the fig tree is a perfect metaphor for Bible-god's behaviour towards mankind.

apatura_iris

The fig tree is a metaphor for Israel. He was cursing it because its fruit was not ripe, i.e. Israel was not ripe for the Messiah (him).

The fig tree is also a metaphor for the Torah.

Yes it is strange that he would curse either.

Didymus

To the Greeks and Romans, the fig symbolized femininity, specifically female genitalia. See Danielle Allen's "The World of Prometheus (or via: amazon.co.uk)," p. 160, http://books.google.com/books?id=lKW...um=5&ct=result

Cato, in a famous speech calling on Romans to attack Carthage, used fresh, supposedly Carthaginian figs to make the point that Carthage was a decadent state whose corrosive and feminizing influences were in dangerously close proximity to Rome itself.

Especially if Matthew was a Hellenized Greek who shared in the Greco-Roman metaphor, a barren fig tree would represent a childless woman - or, taken a step further, a weak, feminized and subservient Jewish homeland that was unable to free herself from the shackles of Roman rule.

Taken in that light, Matthew's pericope had Jesus cursing traditional Jews and Judaism.

Ddms

aa5874

Well, is it really strange? If you examine the Jesus stories, you will see Jesus came to destroy the Jews.

This is John the Baptist Luke 3:7 - The wrath is coming.

mountainman

Dear figuer,

I have not eliminated the possibility that this insane act of Mr. Jesus Sir may have been in fact an interpolation into the canon, by a heretic, perhaps an Arian, who cleverly worked his way into the official scriptorum of the fourth or fifth century.

Best wishes,


Pete

rcscwc

It would be much better if he had made it bloom and bear fruit out of season. With application of proper substances, a tree can be made to wither.

Only metaphor is that he was arrogantly using his powers, if he was god.

Jayrok

The fig tree story is just another example that the author of Mark was writing fiction, at least in part. It is symbolic of God cursing Israel for not bearing good fruit and turning to worship foreign gods and idols. "Their root is withered, they bear no fruit." (Hosea 9)

In a story that is supposed to be historically documented, it doesn't make sense. But in a story filled with metaphor, like basically all events in Mark, it makes perfect sense. The same can be said for cleansing the Temple of the money changers. Anyone think a real person, named Jesus or not, could have honestly went into the Temple courts and caused that kind of stir without any immediate backlash? I don't either. But for a story of metaphorical events, it makes perfect sense.

Solo

This story is so strange - for the reason you have stated here - that it is likely originating in a real incident involving Jesus.

We have had a debate here while back on whether the fig tree story was 'invented' by Mark from OT material.

The story no doubt describes a cognitive lapse of Jesus. The question here is whether the report of impaired reality testing originates with the gospeller or in a story that he handled. Observing that Mark often contains strange-looking tidbits which appear intentional (eg. Jesus is addressed by people when he is alone, Peter and Zebedees do not know what "rising from the dead" means even though they witnessed the "raising" of Jairus daughter, Bartimaeus throwing off his shirt when joining up with Jesus, crowds preceding the disciples to a place Jesus picks for them to rest, Jesus asked to "predict" when being slapped, etc.) I tend to think the fig tree originated in a report to Mark which he knew related to the works of the spirit and which he interpreted symbolically.

The incident fits well with what is known about the effects of hypnagogia, i.e. semi-wakeful states just before or after sleep. People who experience pronounced excitation (eg. ecstatics) lose sleeping rhythm and tend to get very elaborate hypnagogic "visions" which are sort of like dreams but during which one remains partially aware of one's surroundings and often interacts with "real" objects and makes them do what one wants (see "autosymbolism" in the link above). This is the effect in part of straightforward hallucination, in part to strangely distorted patterns of perception and cognition in which objects (e.g. food) are perceived but hidden to the semi-aware self until a desire for them is created (i.e. hunger). Then they are presented visually, which makes it appear to one's thinking brain that the food came as a direct response to one's wishing for it. This consciousness (which is very childlike, btw) has a feeling of grandiosity attached to it.

The "magical" property of the "spirit" greatly exercised the Jesus mystics. Most of the gospel "miracles" are related in one way ore another to a temporary circadian anarchy and abnormal perception (which they interpreted as reward for faith) one experiences in the highly excited states. A feeling of unlimited power and grandiosity attaches to these experiences.

The problem arises in that at a certain point this "paradisiac" consciousness exhausts itself. Reality will come back; it will shake the brain to wake up. What goes up must come down. The spirit no longer "brings" food. One realizes that one has been fooled as the magic no longer works (and assigns the failures to the works of Satan, Mara, jinns, or whatever comes handy). One goes psycho, trying to "force" the "kingdom" to come back. And one ends up cursing a fig tree to the bewilderment of one's followers. They remember the incident because it seems so weird.

Jiri