Solo

Would that be argument by agony ?

So, ok in Hosea the figs are symbolically used in a beatific vision that is spoiled.

There is no beatific vision that opens up the fig tree story in Mark 11. Jesus is hungry. His cup runneth not over; he is running on empty.

How do you know he was too late for "early fruit" ? It looks like it was too early: the breba fruit (the smaller fig fruit of the first crop) comes into season in mid-April. Wiki quotes Matthew Henry on this. His quote references the breba (if the fig tree in question was one capable of producing two crops), as the second (main) fig harvest would have been six months away.

Jiri

Clivedurdle

I know. And he explicitly states he spent a huge amount of time using the extant literature to create this historical novel of Julian. I assume there is a reference to this somewhere. In any case I thought Jiri's comments about Buddha confirmed this.

As you know I think an awful lot that is asserted by xianity is a fantasy, and I really would look to contemporary thoughts rather than several hundred year old ones. Xianity saw Mithras as its major competitor.

Clivedurdle

I have just noticed an assumption about Mithraism that is unwarranted - that it was in competition with the imperial cult - this is xian - not Roman thinking. Romans were eclectic, and picked and mixed their gods. Apollo, sol invictus and Mithras were seen as very similar if not identical, just different people's interpretations.

I wonder if a huge amount of evidence has been deliberately destroyed by xians, and more importantly, a xian mind set of the true gods being little local cults that did not spread means their inter relationships are deliberately diverted away from. The victors have infected even what evidence we can see.

mojuang

you pple are good!!i never thought much about this fig tree thing!But to be exact its that passage that made my grandfather quit the religion of this wicked wizard who can curse a fig tree due to his own ignorance!the old man was a fruit farmer...

Malachi151

Don't know what to tell you. I've explained it as best I can.

#1) Your objection that the passage read "of the first season" has been shown to be false, since the LXX didn't contain this passage, which should give you pause and make you reconsider, but apparently not.

#2) You keep (seemingly) misinterpreting what I am saying. I never said that he was "too late" for the early fruit. The author of Mark setup up a scenario where Jesus looks for fruit at a time when it was too early, and he finds none. This ONLY makes sense in relation to Hosea 9, where God DID see early fruit in the past.

In the past God found early fruit, today Jesus does not find early fruit. This is the whole point, which alludes to the failure of the Jews. They are no longer favored by God.

You are intentionally trying to over complicate things, and you have done nothing to address the other parallels, nor the meaning of Hosea 9 and how that fits with the meaning of other scriptural references made in Mark, or my explanation of the meaning of Mark, which is an allegory about the destruction of Judea.

As far as I am concerned, this is the only explanation for Mark 11:13 that makes any sense. It fully explains the entire setup of looking for fruit before they were supposed to be in season.

Your problem is that you realize that if this passage is, as I say, a construction from Hosea 9, then it certainly isn't "historical", and it certainly does not reflect an "oral tradition", and it shows that the author of Mark was the originator of these narrative elements, which include both the cursing of the tree and the clearing of the temple, which makes the clearing of the temple, something attested to in every Gospel, non-historical.

Not only does this show that the clearing of the temple is non-historical, but it shows how a non-historical element that originated from GMark became historicized.

Not only this, but it then also shows that the author of GJohn was influenced by the synoptics, showing that story elements in GJohn originate from GMark.

So, I see why you oppose, because it makes the whole house of cards come tumbling down, nevertheless your objections are without merit.

Solo

I simply pointed out that the text of Hebrew text of Hosea is expanded to enhance the joyous vision. I did not check Septuagint, which Mark would have used, which does not carry the "first season". All right, one for you!

What is the real import of the expansion on what I am saying ? Not very much. The extra accent may be missing but the passage still conveys the beatific vision of God's gifts to Israel.

Now, how would you interpret yourself saying:
???

I don't accept it was God who found anything on the tree, it is the beholder of God's ways. The simple fact remains that the beatific-image-spoiled which describes Hosea 9. does not carry over to Mark 11.

I already told you that I cant' credit that Mark used OT "almost always" to justify/predict/explain the destruction of Judea. We will just have to agree to disagree.

For the last time, and again at the risk that what I am saying is "overcomplicated": I have very little problem with your proposition that Mark 11. references Hosea 9. What does not make sense to me is an assertion that because Mark hints at that piece of OT, he was creating the story from scratch. That is false reasoning which is - in this case - attested to what I consider a large cognitive gap in the opening of the story. Given the analysis (that I showed in the "Why does BCH attract such people..?") there needs to be an explanation for Jesus "hunger" in the story and the "information" that figs were out of season. Unless you deploy some knight-move in logic, the reference to Hosea 9 does not solve that mystery.
That the out-of-season "information" was seen as damaging embarrassment is most forcefully attested by Matthew and Luke who leave it out. Matthew, on the other hand, adds the important clue that the incident happened in the morning which makes me suspect that he knew what the real issue was.

I have already explained to you that the use of some "OT predictor" of a gospel event does not ipso facto make that event fictional. It could have been supplied later to assert some mystical import of the event falling into a large pattern of pre-arranged, and controlled outcome. For example, Jesus brooding at C-P that he was going to be killed and Peter grabbing him and Jesus blowing up in his face has all the markings of a real event. Now, imagine the psychological impact of that event (if it was real) on the group when Jesus really did "get killed". It would have looked like a prophecy and it would have been ascribed supernatural origin and new anecdotes would have been been remembererd where Jesus foresaw things (and where Peter was wrong or inefficient). Then Paul converts and proclaims later at Corinth that God revealed the Jesus-plan, and said to him that the Cross was pre-planted for Jesus. Now imagine the impact of something like that bouncing back to the original group from half way across the known world.

You've got me figured out as best as you can, Malachi, I have no doubts about that.

Jiri