Why didn't he just do one of his magic tricks and make a bowl of figs? This is one of those examples of Jesus being off his rocker.

A temperamental asshole just like his dad.

Yep this is one of those passages that just doesn't make any sense, no matter how you slice it.

If he is the Son of God as well as God and is all knowing and all powerful, why didn't he know that the fig tree was out of season? Didn't he himself supposedly create the seasons.

And why didn't he have the tree produce figs through his touch, as Pope Peabrain suggests?

If he is compassionate why did he make sure that the tree never produce fruit again?

By this passage we can deduce that Jesus is not all knowing and not all powerful and a psychopath to boot.

No, the point of this passage is to be fruity and multiply. Stranger readers certainly qualify.

Low blood sugar and in a bad mood. We've all been there.

I eat Fig Newtons all the time. So take THAT Son of God!

Figs are full of dead wasps. Just thought I'd put that out there.

GOD HATES FIGS!

At least Adam and Eve were able to find a way to use fig leaves.

@8: For the combined, "Boo!" and "Yay!"

The fig tree represents the temple. He curses the fig tree, goes back and clears the temple, and when they leave again, the fig tree is withered; foreshadowing the destruction of the temple.
In Greek and Roman mythology, figs are sometimes associated with Dionysus (Bacchus to the Romans), god of wine and drunkenness, and with Priapus, a satyr who symbolized sexual desire.
The fig tree has a sacred meaning for Buddhists; the Buddha, achieved enlightenment while sitting under a bo tree, a kind of fig tree. The bo or bodhi tree remains a symbol of enlightenment.
Islamic tradition mentions two forbidden trees in Eden—a fig tree and an olive tree.
The Charybdis Fig Tree is credited for saving Odysseus from being sucked in to the whirlpool.
Jesus' cursing the fig tree as a cloaked reference to Mithraism, one of Mithra's greatest symbols.

So Jesus, who is actually god AND the son of god at the same time (so the son of himself), somehow becomes hungry. So he goes to a tree that he himself created and knows that it won't have figs, looks for figs and of course finds none, then gets pissed that his own creation doesn't have the stuff that he himself made it not have.

Fucking religion, how does it work?

There was a crazy looking guy yelling at a tree near my apartment the other day. I'd just figured he was probably mentally unbalanced, though if I see him again I'm gonna go ahead and assume he's the son of God.

maybe he was being ironic? stop taking jesus so literally!

Sounds like Bethany's a pretty lousy host, but maybe I would be, too, if my job was to eat out.

@11
That's a pretty cool explanation.

@14
That's a good point, too. There was some Biblical scholar on the radio some years ago who pointed out that there's actually a lot of humor in the gospels. Think of a New York Jewish kid saying, "Better a camel should go through the eye of a needle than a rich man should make it to heaven."

@11 There is a "sacred" fig tree that still grows in the Roman forum.

3 & 12, the whole trinity thing is a lot more recent than the bible, you need some serious mental/theological gymnastics to make that kind of stuff line up.

I read an article about weird biblical passages (I think in Slate) that mentioned this. I think the idea that the "tree wasn't in season" is supposed to have something to do with the people of the time not being prepared to understand his teachings.

So fuck them, right?

I'm sure those figs would have just tasted like sour grapes anyway.

I always suspected Jesus was treephobic.

Jesus was a petulant, tree-hating bastard.

Italians use the same word for fig as they do for vagina. Something to think about.

@23: So, Vagina Newtons? Consider me intrigued . . .

So, Jesus* was a petulant, ignorant prick. What a surprise that so many of his believers follow suit.

*allegedly, in the absence of any real historical evidence for his existence.