Meditations

Question from listener on moody radio on February 4, 2018:

I have been studying the fig tree that Jesus cursed, normally I study in Mark 11, when he’s going on the road with the disciples and it’s said that he answered the tree and you get the impression that he’s crazy but he did not say anything. But, it’s said that there were no leaves and so he answered the tree and said that no man will eat fruit in Mark 11 verse 14, no man eat fruit of hereafter forever and his disciples heard it and coming down on the verse in the evening, they went out, verse 19, they went out of the city, verse 20, in the morning, as they pass by fig tree, they saw it dry up from the roots and Peter called to remembrance, said you cursed the tree. Matthew chapter 21, in verse 19, it says that and when he saw the fig tree on the way, he came to it and found nothing thereon, that leaves only and said onto it, let no fruit grow on you henceforth forever and presently, the fig true withered away. Verse 20 and when the disciple saw it and they marveled saying, how soon is the fig tree withered away and I have never really noticed that version of the story before, can you shed some light on it for me please and tell me when did the tree really dry up?

Answer from Dr Michael Vanlaningham:

Sure, great question and a of course a lot of more critical scholars say we have a contradiction here, matthew says it happens all in one day and mark indicates that it happened over two days. We are talking about Monday of the last week of Jesus’ life, more than likely, the day before it was Palm Sunday. I think as he is going into the city, as both gospel say on, that Monday, he sees the tree and he withers it. Matthew has a compressed account here. Mark has the fuller account. There’s not actually a contradiction. What we have is Matthew does not say that this happens the next day,  for whatever reasons that fits his purpose. A little something that you should know about Mark. When Mark has an episode that is parallel by either Matthew or Luke or both, Mark almost always has the longer account, especially with Matthew but sometimes Luke as well. Mark is the shorter gospel. He has fewer episodes in it overall but when he has an episode that either Matthew or Luke also have, he almost always have the longer account. So, he tends to give more detail on those episodes and here is one of those examples where he actually says this actually happens over a two day period. Matthew compresses it. Now, some are going to say, that’s a mistake, that’s an error. I will disagree and I tell you why. It was very common among ancient history writers, not just our gospel writers, that they would do a lot of that kind of thing. They would  compress accounts. They would sometimes arrange things thematically, whereas another account of exactly the  same thing would have been more straight forward in terms of its chronology. Now, let me give you an example, somebody who would write a biography of my life,  they might put in a single chapter all my education,  high school, college, master’s degree, phd. They would put it in the same chapter. Problem is those things are spread out over about a twenty year period. So, that would be a thematic arrangement. We would say it’s not inaccurate, it’s just how it gets done by this particular writer. So, Mark has certainly the fuller account, which is what Mark usually does. Matthew has a compressed account but I don’t think we have a contradiction.