And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.
Mark 11:12-14
This is a very confusing passage. Since it was Passover, ripe figs were definately out of season. Mark 11:1 says Jesus was near Bethphage, which some have said translates into "house of the unripe fig." During this time, wealthy land owners would allow their bumper crops to spill over their property lines. It was legal to eat from the uncultivated fig trees in or out of season.
ReplyDeleteOnly the extremely poor would consider eating the buds, or tiny nodules from unripe fig trees because they tasted so horrible. Apparently Bethphage was such a place that the hungry knew they could at least pick buds from. Seems like this tree, despite "leafing" or looking like it would have buds, had nothing on it - not even enough to feed a wandering poor person.
Later, Jesus would talk about praying to move "mountains." This is actually mistranslated in the Greek from the same spelling for another word meaning "boundary stone." This was a lesson about wealth and poverty, and the boundary between them. No matter how wealthy or poor, we all should have something decent to offer. When we don't, we shrivel up from the root outward. Actually a pretty cool story when you think about metaphorically.
I love the "God Hates Figs" pun. Good stuff.
I am so glad I am not the only one who thought this. This saves me the embarrassment of asking this in church.
ReplyDeleteWhat's really funny is that it's all myth. The bible people covet so dearly is 66 different books never meant to be compiled into a text and read from beginning to end. Its full of lies and fairy tales. God is nothing more then a caveman standing in a cave during a thunderstorm looking for answers.
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