Solo

Neil, what is your sense Mark intended with the fig-tree story ? Was it to provide an illustration of the power of Jesus' faith to bring unrepentant Israel to its ruin ? And if the answer is 'yes', what function would the 'out of season' info have in the setup ?

Jiri

neilgodfrey

There are many questions about Mark's intentions that I wish I could answer. As I indicated in my initial post here I can see many arguments to and fro this and that explanation. Not knowing the identity any author I find it difficult at best of times to be certain about "intentions".

But we do know the author had the idea of "withering" in mind, and the idea of bearing fruit, from the beginning of the gospel. In the synagogue in Galilee Jesus healed a "withered" hand. In the parable of the sower Jesus warned that among his followers would be those who "withered" -- and some commentators see here a pointer to Peter (rock -- cf rocky soil) and the disciples. If "withering" were the only concept bracketing the gospel this would not be strong, but the idea of "withering" is one of many motifs that are found bookending this gospel, indicating that the author was planning his gospel well from the beginning, and not simply engaged in a process of step by step piecing together in crude fashion a melange of written sources that he could not quite edit smoothly enough to fit together.

Soon after the fig tree episode we read that the author is very conscious of right or timely seasons -- 13:28. I find it difficult to accept that such an author could be so thick as to fail to edit out the "not the season for figs" comment from his source if such would match his theology.

The gospel ends with Jesus totally deserted, and the only ones in the final scenes who come to tend his body find that his body is no longer a fact to tend. That is the closest I can come to the time described in the gospel as "not being the time for figs" (or fruit). I have been suggesting in other venues for some time now that Joseph of Arimathea and the women at the tomb are not, in Mark, positive figures at all but negative ones. It is only when we read them through later gospel interpretations that they take on their positive hues. Mark's conclusion is decisively that of a Jesus totally deserted and his only perceptive followers are found not in the gospel but among the perceptive of the readers/hearers of Mark's gospel. The time for figs was, if this is the case, 'after' the events of the gospel.

Neil Godfrey

http://vridar.wordpress.com

Clivedurdle

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=205276

I know this is incredibly Ikeaist and finding parallels, but what if Mark is a deliberate anti - Augustus treatise? The concept of anti - Christ - and Rome being called that in Revelation - is a reversal of the reality - this Christ figure is the Anti - Victory!

For example

Blessed are the peacemakers as a satire on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_infantry_tactics

Read Mark from the perspective of a Roman citizen.

It is blasphemous throughout against Rome. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and God which is god's is blasphemous to a Roman because Caesar was god!

There is even a tale about a legion being killed going over a cliff!

What if Jesus Christ was a deliberate political invention by the author of Mark to construct a heavenly anti emperor?

Lucretius

Could not the fig tree not bearing fruit "out of season" mean that the Roman Empire was now "out of season" in other words it's time of usefulness was over ?

Clivedurdle

Exactly!

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/cl...manifesto.html

premjan

Both Israel and Rome had the fig (fig vs. wild fig) as symbols - is the wild fig even edible?

Solo

Thanks, Neil, much appreciated.

Jiri

neilgodfrey

Rescuing myself out from one of those "endless set of mirror reflections" here:

The "fruit" of converts in Mark is all pre-Jerusalem, and the fig tree part of the barren Jerusalem scene. It's been argued that Mark's geography is his theology, and Galilee represents the new kingdom and Jerusalem the doomed old order. In this context the "season for figs" is not meant to be taken as a global objective fact, but is part of the metaphoric setting. It is not the season for figs for Jerusalem and all that Jerusalem and its temple represents. (It may even imply the withering of the Roman and hence entire world order.) If so then there is no contradiction with the fruitlessness of the last part of the gospel and the relative fruitfulness of many unnamed persons in the first part. The fig tree, its withering, and the season itself are all as literary and metaphorical as the settings of Galilee and Jerusalem.

Vardis Fisher wrote a novel about Jesus as a parable, Jesus came again. It doesn't make any realistic sense if taken literally. It reads almost like a series of dream images and the reader needs to keep in mind that it is just a parable. Suspect Mark needs to be read the same way.