“Fellowship is heaven. Lack of fellowship is hell. The deeds that you do on earth you do for the sake of fellowship.”

William Morris

The Defeat of the Jerusalem Garrison 1

A Storm on the Lake
The Fig Tree Cursed

Abstract

The miracle of the fig tree preceded the entry into the city but it was not a miracle. It was not the season for figs so why should Jesus expect to find sustenance on it? For those with ears to hear it shouts out that the story is a parable. The fig tree was the Roman Empire. Jesus says the fig-tree would be barren forever, Rome would be impotent. Jesus goes on to say that they could throw “this mountain” into the sea if they had faith. What was “this mountain” other than the might of Rome. A mountain is a common metaphor for an empire and is so used in Revelation. Jesus was about to attack Jerusalem. He reassured his followers with a morale boosting speech using a fig tree as a metaphor for Rome that they would succeed in defeating the gentile if they had faith in God. Later, he Roman fig-tree had withered! How Jesus and his band of Nazarenes defeated the Roman garrison of Jerusalem.

A Storm on the Lake

Miracles were either real events which were deliberately disguised by the author or parables rendered as the truth. A storm is scriptural metaphor for hostilities. If this is not a Christian insertion then Mark is distorting a speech by Jesus preparing his followers for the coming battle for the kingdom—telling them not to fear the storm—but it has been heavily changed in the telling. The miracle of the walking on water, if “epites” is to be read as “on” not “towards” or “besides”, both of which are more acceptable translations in the context, unless the translator is determined to have a miracle, is part of the same story which has somehow been split.

Jesus seems to have used in his speech elements from Jonah, Nahum and Psalms 65, 83 and 107. In Nahum, God will avenge his people. In Psalms 83 gentile nations surrounding Judaea plotted against the Jews and cut them off from being a nation but, these enemies of Israel, God would pursue with a tempest, and terrify with a storm until they were confounded and perished. On the other hand the Nazarenes need not fear God’s storm because in Psalms 107 they need only cry to the Lord in their trouble and God would calm the storm and bring them into a safe haven. In Psalms 65 we find that God stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people. In Jonah, God sends a storm to punish Jonah, but Jonah sleeps through it when everyone else was fearful. The men rowed hard to get back to the land but they could not. His song from the belly of the fish ends with the name of Jesus! “Salvation is of God”.

The reason for the speech is that Jesus is starting off with his Nazarenes on their way to Jerusalem. They decide to cross the the Sea of Galilee into the country of the gentiles known as Decapolis which involves making the trip in a flotilla of small boats—the clue that this is genuine tradition—Mark makes it clear there is more than one boat showing that the Nazarene band was of significant size. Mark cannot report any of this without betraying that the Nazarenes are not a band of peace-loving yokels so rewrites the event as a miracle taking his cues from the speech and the scene of a flotilla of small boats setting off across the sea. Jesus might well have remained calm when others were unsure and excitable.

Why did Jesus want to cross the Sea of Galilee? The practical reasons were to avoid travelling through either Herod’s territory of Galilee or the Roman domain of Judaea. More importantly, the scriptures ordained that he should. In Ezekiel 39, we find that God promises to smite all the enemies of Israel represented by the great prince Gog—for the Nazarenes, the Greeks and the Romans. In Ezekiel 39:11, God promises to make a graveyard of Gog’s armies in the valley of them that pass through on the east of the sea. In Ezekiel, it meant the trade route up the coast, to the east of the Mediterranean Sea, but the Nazarenes in typical Essene fashion would have read this as east of the Sea of Galilee. This was the reason for Jesus’s excursion across the water. He felt it was God’s will so, for him to succeed, he was destined to enter Judaea by the eastern route, beyond the Jordan. Moreover, Ezekiel prophesies that the weapons left behind by Gog’s armies would provide kindling for the children for seven years. In Essene eschatology, this pointed to the first seven years of the forty years of war described in the War Scroll, confirming to Jesus that it was a necessary step in the calling down of the kingdom.

If the miracle of walking on water has become detached from Jesus’s rousing speech, the implication could be that Jesus also drew upon Job 9:5-8 where God moves mountains, shakes the earth, stops the sun from rising and treads on water, and Psalms 77:16-20 where he leads his people through his paths in the great waters out of a fearful storm guided by Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron as king and priest represented the titles that Jesus had as the Nasi. So he was using the psalm to assure his followers that he would lead them successfully under God’s guidance in the coming battle. Somehow in the oral tradition the two parts of the speech got separated and we finished up with two consequent miracles.

The Fig Tree Cursed

Jesus’s hatred of the Romans is revealed in the “miracle” of the withering of the fig tree (Mt 21:19-21; Mk 11:20-21).The story in Matthew is that Jesus was hungry…

And seeing a fig tree by the way side, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only. And he saith unto it, Let there be no fruit from thee henceforward forever. And immediately the fig tree withered away.

More truthfully, in Mark, it was not immediately dead. It was dead the next day! This episode has offered difficulties for Christians because Jesus is considered to be acting uncharacteristically.

The miracle of the fig tree preceded the cleansing of the temple as Mark indicates—indeed it preceded the entry into the city—but it was not a miracle. The gospels of Matthew and Mark report the incident as an actual event—a miracle—but it was plainly a parable. Mark tells us it was not the season for figs so why should Jesus expect to find sustenance on it? For those with ears to hear it shouts out that the story is a parable.

Elsewhere (Mt 24:32; Mk 13:28) is a short metaphor of the signs of the times, called the parable of the fig tree because the Nazarene oral tradition knew of a fig tree parable, but Mark had turned it into a miracle and so had to introduce this to cover the missing parable. Plainly the original parable was re-written as a miracle. That Jesus theatrically ring barked an actual fig tree, thus killing it, is possible.

Christians have generally regarded the fig tree as Israel which Jesus cursed because they had failed as the Chosen People. This false interpretation is because some Old Testament passages use the fig tree as an alternative to the vine as a metaphor for Israel, though elsewhere it seems to mean gentiles, so that vine and fig tree covers all mankind. In fact, the fig tree was the Roman Empire. Jesus says the fig-tree would be barren forever—he would render Rome impotent. Jeremiah 28:10-14 uses a similar metaphor. The disciples were amazed at this but Jesus goes on to say (Mt 21:21) that they could throw “this mountain” into the sea if they had faith. What was “this mountain” other than the might of Rome. A mountain is a common metaphor for an empire and is so used in Revelation.

The fig tree was the symbol of Rome because, in the myth of the foundation of the city, the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus are sheltered by a fig tree while being suckled by a she-wolf and a woodpecker. When the gentile enemy’s city arms include a fig tree, there is no mistaking gospel references here and in Luke 13:6-9. In John 1:48 Jesus sees Nathanael under a fig tree, meaning that he accepted the power of Rome—he was a collaborator. Jesus wins him over to the cause of the revolution. Zacchaeus climbed into a Pharaoh’s fig tree, a sycomore, in Luke, meaning he too was a collaborator. Those who had ears to hear would have recognised the fig-tree as Rome. Ever since the fig tree, the sycomore and the carob in Middle Eastern mythology, have been considered unholy trees which offer perches for demons.

What really happened was that Jesus was about to attack Jerusalem. He reassured his followers, with a morale boosting speech using a fig tree as a metaphor for Rome, that they would succeed in defeating the might of the gentile if they had faith in God. With the coming of the kingdom God would make them world leaders with His miracle on the mount of Olives.

Jesus concludes the speech by drawing lessons from the parable, but this part has been transferred until after the cleansing of the temple because Mark has dramatized it and has to allow time to pass for the tree to wither. The time was the time needed to defeat the Jerusalem garrison and emerge victorious The Roman fig-tree had withered!

Those with God in their hearts can cast a mountain—meaning Rome—into the sea. Luke 17:5-6 has an alteration—it is a mulberry tree which is uprooted and dropped into the sea. Luke actually writes a sycamine tree, which is a mulberry but since the mulberry is a small tree no more than 30 feet high whereas the sycomore tree is a large tree, giant in girth, with widespreading branches and huge roots, Luke plainly meant the latter. Without doubt the tree thrown into the sea, like the mountain, represented Roman power so it would have been a large fig tree rather than a modest mulberry bush.

Page Tags: Temple, Cleansing, Entry into Jerusalem, Jerusalem Garrison, Fig Tree, Gadarene Demoniac, Authority, Wicked Husbandmen, Jesus, Fig, God, Israel, Jerusalem, Jesus, King, Legion, Mark, Nazarenes, Parable, Roman

Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.