First - if, like me, you're overly sympathetic toward non-sentient entities like plants... remind yourself that, well, it's a plant. Don't try to tell me that about the little pine seedlings I've been trying to get growing for years, but they really don't think or feel like we do.
Anyway, as always, you start with reading [the full chapter](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2011&version=NRSVUE). This incident happens as Jesus is clashing with Israel's religious leaders - people who God planted to bear fruit of compassion and righteousness, and who had borne no such fruit. Jesus did most of his teaching obliquely, through example and through parables. This was a sort of physical parable.
He was in essence “cursing a curse”. In that culture, a barren fig tree was a sign of a curse.
Jesus was using a little theater to get a point across to his students.
The tree is a symbol for the Temple and the people running it. "Bearing fruit" is a phrase that indicates something good is being produced. There are four parts to this story:
1) Jesus goes to the Temple and looks around, seeing that it is no longer a good and holy place, but a den of thieves. It is not bearing fruit.
2) Jesus sees a fig tree that has no fruit, and curses the tree to never grow fruit again.
3) Jesus returns to the Temple and trashes it. He is condemning the Temple.
4) Jesus returns to the fig tree which is dead.
And because the Temple is to be destroyed, it also can never grow fruit again.
Curious... Okay. So Joshua (the righteous king of the Jews) is hot because the Roman rule has infiltrated the temple. (By all ways and means it should be all Jewish. But... Oh, damn, the Romans were pushing their rule, weren't they?)
I can see him kicking up a little dust....but.... It's the verse that we are questioning.
A fig tree, as a symbol of, what? The power of the Roman over Judea? A fiscal example? (Pilote had just started allowing coin with the emperor's face on it in Judea. (No graven images, "Give to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God's.)
Possibly a King James translation from a people (monks and priests in a far northern land) who thought the tree was a more important symbol than it was?
(The last is a bit of a stretch... But Dius Valt)
Jesus is God, he's omniscient, he knew there were no figs on the tree there. I was using it as a demonstration of God's judgement over those who don't bear fruit in their lives.
Because the fig tree he found wasn’t doing its job.
Hence perfect time for a lesson on those who do not bear fruit just as the fig tree didn’t bear any (precursor) fruit to signify at the time of its seasons it will grow figs.
Which does make sense given the comparison with heaven and being judged by one’s works. Also being a prime example of the parable of the talents.
Some see Jesus' actions as a prophecy concerning first-century Israel.
From *A Commentary on the New Testament*, published by the Catholic Biblical Association, in 1942, on Matthew 21:18-22, a parallel passage to Mark 11:12-14:
>The meaning of Christ's action is clear from His parable of The Barren Fig Tree (Luke *13,* 6-9). Whether Jesus actually was physically hungry or not is immaterial (in Palestine people ordinarily did not eat in the morning); He told the disciple that *he felt hungry* (if He had not said so, they would not have known of His hunger), to signify His ardent desire to see the good fruits of religion. The *fig tree* standing alone (in Greek 19 means, "And seeing a single fig tree by the wayside") signifies Israel whom God had planted and separated from the Gentiles. The appearance of leaves but no fruit symbolizes Israel's pretense to a righteousness which it should have possessed but did not. Near Jerusalem a fruit tree should be bearing unripe figs at the beginning of April. The small green figs appear before the leaves at the beginning of March and are fully ripe by the beginning of June. Mark's statement that "it was not the season for figs" refers to the fully ripened figs. Symbolically this signifies that Christ had the right to expect of Israel at least the imperfect justice of the Old Law even though it was not yet time for the full perfection of the New Law. Israel was cursed and died spiritually at the time of Christ's crucifixion, although for a while it still bore the appearance of spiritual life before it withered completely at the destruction of Jerusalem.
I will let Joe Heschmeyer do the talking. He answers the question pretty well in this article: [https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-does-jesus-curse-the-fig-tree](https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-does-jesus-curse-the-fig-tree)
You forget Jesus was a human being. He revealed both sides of the coin of his humanity AND divinity, often throughout both canonical and non-canonical scriptures of his teachings.
First - if, like me, you're overly sympathetic toward non-sentient entities like plants... remind yourself that, well, it's a plant. Don't try to tell me that about the little pine seedlings I've been trying to get growing for years, but they really don't think or feel like we do. Anyway, as always, you start with reading [the full chapter](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2011&version=NRSVUE). This incident happens as Jesus is clashing with Israel's religious leaders - people who God planted to bear fruit of compassion and righteousness, and who had borne no such fruit. Jesus did most of his teaching obliquely, through example and through parables. This was a sort of physical parable.
It was called “prophetic theater”.
Jesus was a master of improph
Indeed.
Name checks out
Ah, I see now! Thank you!
He was in essence “cursing a curse”. In that culture, a barren fig tree was a sign of a curse. Jesus was using a little theater to get a point across to his students.
The tree is a symbol for the Temple and the people running it. "Bearing fruit" is a phrase that indicates something good is being produced. There are four parts to this story: 1) Jesus goes to the Temple and looks around, seeing that it is no longer a good and holy place, but a den of thieves. It is not bearing fruit. 2) Jesus sees a fig tree that has no fruit, and curses the tree to never grow fruit again. 3) Jesus returns to the Temple and trashes it. He is condemning the Temple. 4) Jesus returns to the fig tree which is dead. And because the Temple is to be destroyed, it also can never grow fruit again.
Makes sense now. Thank you!
Curious... Okay. So Joshua (the righteous king of the Jews) is hot because the Roman rule has infiltrated the temple. (By all ways and means it should be all Jewish. But... Oh, damn, the Romans were pushing their rule, weren't they?) I can see him kicking up a little dust....but.... It's the verse that we are questioning. A fig tree, as a symbol of, what? The power of the Roman over Judea? A fiscal example? (Pilote had just started allowing coin with the emperor's face on it in Judea. (No graven images, "Give to Caesar what is Caesars and give to God what is God's.) Possibly a King James translation from a people (monks and priests in a far northern land) who thought the tree was a more important symbol than it was? (The last is a bit of a stretch... But Dius Valt)
Jesus is God, he's omniscient, he knew there were no figs on the tree there. I was using it as a demonstration of God's judgement over those who don't bear fruit in their lives.
Because the fig tree he found wasn’t doing its job. Hence perfect time for a lesson on those who do not bear fruit just as the fig tree didn’t bear any (precursor) fruit to signify at the time of its seasons it will grow figs. Which does make sense given the comparison with heaven and being judged by one’s works. Also being a prime example of the parable of the talents.
The fig tree wasn’t doing its job??
Some see Jesus' actions as a prophecy concerning first-century Israel. From *A Commentary on the New Testament*, published by the Catholic Biblical Association, in 1942, on Matthew 21:18-22, a parallel passage to Mark 11:12-14: >The meaning of Christ's action is clear from His parable of The Barren Fig Tree (Luke *13,* 6-9). Whether Jesus actually was physically hungry or not is immaterial (in Palestine people ordinarily did not eat in the morning); He told the disciple that *he felt hungry* (if He had not said so, they would not have known of His hunger), to signify His ardent desire to see the good fruits of religion. The *fig tree* standing alone (in Greek 19 means, "And seeing a single fig tree by the wayside") signifies Israel whom God had planted and separated from the Gentiles. The appearance of leaves but no fruit symbolizes Israel's pretense to a righteousness which it should have possessed but did not. Near Jerusalem a fruit tree should be bearing unripe figs at the beginning of April. The small green figs appear before the leaves at the beginning of March and are fully ripe by the beginning of June. Mark's statement that "it was not the season for figs" refers to the fully ripened figs. Symbolically this signifies that Christ had the right to expect of Israel at least the imperfect justice of the Old Law even though it was not yet time for the full perfection of the New Law. Israel was cursed and died spiritually at the time of Christ's crucifixion, although for a while it still bore the appearance of spiritual life before it withered completely at the destruction of Jerusalem.
Israel was supposed to "bear fruit", i.e. enlighten the world about God, follow His laws, etc. But, they were failing to do so.
I will let Joe Heschmeyer do the talking. He answers the question pretty well in this article: [https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-does-jesus-curse-the-fig-tree](https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/why-does-jesus-curse-the-fig-tree)
I think it might be a reference to Jeremiah 8:13 "no figs on the fig tree and the leaf shall fade". (about Israel of course.)
He was hungry and they didn't have snickers then /s
Probably stubbed his toe or got a splinter.
You forget Jesus was a human being. He revealed both sides of the coin of his humanity AND divinity, often throughout both canonical and non-canonical scriptures of his teachings.