FF Bruce: Jesus Cursing Fig Tree as Historical Event

[Blood]

The other miracle is the cursing of the barren fig tree (Mk. 11:12 ff.), a stumbling block to many. They feel that it is unlike Jesus, and so someone must have misunderstood what actually happened, or turned a spoken parable into an acted miracle, or something like that. Some, on the other hand, welcome the story
because it shows that Jesus was human enough to get unreasonably annoyed on occasion. It appears,however, that a closer acquaintance with fig trees would have prevented such misunderstandings. 'The time of figs was not yet,' says Mark, for it was just before Passover, about six weeks before the fully formed fig appears. The fact that Mark adds these words shows that he knew what he was talking about.When the fig leaves appear about the end of March they are accompanied by a crop of small knobs, called taqsh by the Arabs, a sort of forerunner of the real figs. These taqsh are eaten by peasants and others when hungry. They drop off before the real fig is formed. But if the leaves appear unaccompanied by taqsh, there will be no figs that year. So it was evident to our Lord, when He turned aside to see if there were any of these taqsh on the fig tree to assuage His hunger for the time being, that the absence of the taqsh meant that there would be no figs when the time for figs came. For all its fair show of foliage, it was a fruitless and hopeless tree.

The whole incident was an acted parable. To Jesus the fig tree, fair but barren, spoke of the city of Jerusalem, where He had found much religious observance, but no response to His message from God. The withering of the tree was thus an omen of the disaster which, as He foresaw and foretold, would shortly fall upon the city.

But, as Mark records the incident, the withering of the tree had a personal significance for the disciples; it taught them to have faith in God. And this is the moral which the miracle stories have for us today. They are recorded as signs of divine power; and even if we could prove their historicity up to the hilt we should still miss the point of their narration if we failed to see in them tokens of the activity of God in history, culminating in the appearance of Christ on earth.

That might be my favorite rationalization of a NT passage of all time. "The whole incident was an acted parable." Classic.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Doesn't explain why he cursed it, and it works just fine as a literary parable. No need to historicize it.

[stevencarrwork]

So Jesus felt the Jews didn't believe in God?

Why such casual anti-Semitism from Bruce?

Would he have ever gone up to an orthodox Jew in real life and told him 'You don't believe in God'?

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Plus the tree only symbolizes the Temple, not "the Jews."

[Charles Wilson]

Actually, the fig tree symbolizes the Julio-Claudians, who will never again rule, when the Flavians come to town...

[Ulan]

Plus the tree only symbolizes the Temple, not "the Jews."

I thought the image came from Hosea's description of the destruction of Ephraim? Including the temple of Shiloh of course, but the fig tree part was more about the people and the land.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Plus the tree only symbolizes the Temple, not "the Jews."

I thought the image came from Hosea's description of the destruction of Ephraim? Including the temple of Shiloh of course, but the fig tree part was more about the people and the land.

Mark wraps the fig tree story around the Temple incident which mean, in Mark's rhetorical style, that he intends it as a metaphor for the Temple. The bread in Mark's "sandwiches" are always comments on the "filling."

[lpetrich]

Diogenes the Cynic beat me to it, but I'd discovered the Temple-allegory theory when I watched ▶ Dr. Richard Carrier on the Mythical Jesus - YouTube. His discussion of it starts at 35:40, and he notes his source: R.G. Hamerton-Kelly's "Sacred Violence and the Messiah". In the Bible, it's in Mark 11:12-21, and it goes

• Cursing the fig tree
• The Temple temper tantrum
• Cursing the fig tree

RC explained that it's an allegory for God's shutting down worship at the Jerusalem Temple, which had been important in Jewish religion and nationalism at that time. The fig tree is an allegory for the Temple itself, including its destruction.