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                          religious fruit. Edited by Paul J. Achtemeier. Harper & Row, San Francisco. 1985.
                          P.308.

                          The Interpreter's Bible, Volume VII, provides us with these additional thoughts:


                          The DIFFICULTIES of the story should be frankly faced. To propose that Jesus
                          saw the tree was already diseased, and said so, DOES NO JUSTICE to the
                          undeniable curse in vs. 19. It also OVERLOOKS the fact that men then believed
                          that a righteous man's curse has POWER. To propose that Christ would blast a
                          tree, but not a human life, is SIMPLY UNCONVINCING. Would Christ deal thus
                          even with a tree, especially if -- as Mark's Gospel says -- it was NOT the season
                          for fruit? It is better to ASSUME that this is a rewriting of the parable of the
                          Jewish nation recorded in Luke 13:6-9. It is significant that Luke does not record
                          this story except as a parable. A tree, standing alone where all men could see it,
                          having promise of fruit but no fruit -- a fitting symbol of Jewry in the time of
                          Christ. -- Abingdon Cokesbury Press, N.Y. & Nashville. 1951. Pps.507-508.

                          James Hastings, in his Dictionary of the Bible, attempts to interpret Yeshua's
                   actions that day on the road from Bethany:


                          When our Lord came to the fig tree near Bethany (Mk.11:13), just before the
                          Passover, i.e. from late in March to the middle of April, "the time of figs was not
                          yet," that is, the season for ripe figs had not come. Among the VARIOUS
                          EXPLANATIONS of Christ's action which may be given, the only ones which
                          seem to us worthy of consideration are the following:


                          (1) That being hungry, and seeing from a distance that the tree had leaves, and
                          therefore was not dead, he came, not to find new figs, but to find and eat any figs
                          of the last season which might have remained over on the tree. The expression "if
                          haply he might find anything thereon" implies that he did NOT expect to find
                          much. One or two figs will often stay an empty stomach marvelously. According
                          to this OPINION, the offence of the fig tree was the fact of not having what must
                          have been a very exceptional relic of a former harvest.


                          (2) That, finding leaves, he knew that there should be young fruit, and hoped that
                          there might, even at that EARLY PERIOD, be "the first ripe figs," bikkurah.
                          According to this interpretation, the fault of the fig tree was in not having a
                          precocious fig or two before the time, "for the time of figs was not yet." We will
                          not dispute the possibility of finding a winter fig or two on a tree (ALTHOUGH
                          DURING A RESIDENCE OF THIRTY-THREE YEARS IN SYRIA WE HAVE
                          SEARCHED AND INQUIRED IN VAIN FOR THEM), or of the exceptionally
                          early maturing of some variety of figs, perhaps not now cultivated. Neither of
                          these theories, however, ACCORDS WITH OUR CONCEPTION OF CHRIST'S
                          JUSTICE. In neither case would the fig tree be blameworthy. We are not
                          accountable for extraordinary attainments in religion.
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