One of the reasons why we have a hard time understanding the Gospels and some of Jesus’ actions is that we know very little about the Jewish environment of Jesus’ time. And because of this, what we read in the Gospels becomes difficult to interpret and understand although it was probably easily grasped by those living in the first century AD. We are culturally distanced from Jesus’ hearers and this sometimes places us at a disadvantage in understanding Jesus’ words.

We have all heard of the strange story about the olive tree as Jesus sets out on his road to Jerusalem. Jesus was hungry but Jesus found no fruit on the fig tree – only leaves. Let no fruit ever grow on you again, curses Jesus. This seems so unlike Jesus and yet there it is in three Gospels. What are we to make of this episode? What is going on here?

In order to make sense of this we have to go back to the early chapters of Genesis. We have all read that there were two trees in the garden. One tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the other tree was the tree of life.

In our culture we are often told that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an apple. We have seen many portrayals of Eve offering Adam an apple. But in the Middle East the term apple was just a generic name for fruit. Jewish tradition has it that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not an apple tree but, in fact, a fig tree.

In support of this, it is said in ancient Jewish texts that Adam and Eve made their coverings from the leaves of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from fig leaves and we still have the saying that people hide behind fig leaves.

When Jesus curses the fig tree by saying may no one ever eat of you again, he is indicating that he will defeat the curse placed on humanity by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Jesus is hinting where all this is heading and that is the salvation of mankind. And this is something that would be known by Jews living at the time.

After the Last Supper, Jesus and the apostles head out to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. This, again, is significant in terms of the symbolism that is presented to all Jews of the time. Jewish tradition teaches that the tree of life in Eden was an olive tree. Olive trees play an important role in the lives of people of the Middle East and the olive tree has taken on certain symbolic characteristics. It was after the great flood, that the dove brings back an olive leaf to indicate that new life is starting and it was safe for Noah to disembark, again underlining the fact that the olive tree was connected with life.

The symbolism of the three trees on Golgotha is also significant. Why were there three trees? Why not two, or ten, or any number? What was the underlying significance of this?

To the two trees of Eden, Jesus brings forth a third tree, the tree of eternal life which is placed between the tree of the knowledge of life and death and the tree of life. Evil and death are destroyed by this third tree and eternal life is made accessible to mankind.

It is interesting, as well, that on the two sides of Christ are two men before whom stands a choice. The penitent thief chooses life and his tree is transformed into the tree of life in Paradise. The other thief clings onto the tree of knowledge of good and evil and he descends into death and into separation from God.

One sometimes gets the picture of God as a great dramatist who writes on the creation with symbols and meanings that are expressed indirectly but have so much more impact when we discern them. But the problem with symbols is – how do we know that our interpretations of them are true? It is easy to get lost in all kinds of musings which loosen our ties to reality and have no important meaning for us and for the world.

This is a fair reservation. What protects us from groundless speculation is the existence of the Church. The Church is a repository of the consensus of views by those who have prayed and meditated and shared their experiences of Scripture and interpretation of Scripture. This what we refer to as Tradition. We do not go it alone because we can very easily be misled.

It has been stated by great writers that stories which we may take to be ‘literally’ false can be carriers of truth and allow us to explore depths of reality that we cannot touch with simple rational thinking. Stories play an important role in our lives – look at what most of us do in the evening – and they are crucial to our well-being because they enrich our world view.

Our grasp of the Gospels and of the Good News in general is impoverished by being anchored almost exclusively in the provable, in the totally explainable because this shows our fear of losing our control over reality. But this control is in fact illusory and stories and symbols and myths allow us to see reality from a slightly different and richer perspective. I realize that this can go too far and we lose our connection to reality completely but to go to the other extreme, that only the rational, only the ‘scientific’, offers us a handle on reality is to limit reality and our ability to interact with it. It is no coincidence that a great part of Scripture is written in poetic form and not in the dry reportorial, ‘factual’ form that we crave for sometimes.

It is interesting that in the Eastern Church there are only three persons who attained the title of ‘theologian’. The first is the Apostle John, whose gospel is ‘different’ in tone and in depth is more poetic and more grand than the other Gospels. John’s Gospel still speaks about the essence of the Good News that man has been redeemed because God Himself has taken a hand in the matter, a matter that no one else could have accomplished.

The second is St. Symeon the New Theologian, and the third is Gregory Nazianzus.

What is fascinating about all of them is that they are the most poetic of writers. St. Symeon and St. Gregory were renowned as poets and yet, they were granted the supreme accolade of ‘theologian’. This should tell us something about the value of poetry and symbolic language and how they are valued by the Church.

But if symbols and poetry are important then we have to train ourselves in using them to enrich our knowledge and our interaction with Scripture and through this, with God. The symbols and poetry have to be married to ‘knowledge’ of history and Scriptures. Symbols and poetry cannot and should not operate on their own in a vacuum untethered to what the Church as a whole teaches.

The important point that I am trying to make above is that we need to understand the mind-set of Jews living in the time of Christ. What this will enable us to do is to better understand what it is that Christ was saying or doing, how this would have been received by his compatriots, and to understand this in terms of Scriptures in general, and how Jews living in the first century would see things.

It is interesting that as Christ accompanies his two companions on the road to Emmaus, he sees the incomprehension that has enveloped his companions. They cannot understand what had transpired previously with the death and Resurrection of Christ.

How does he enlighten them? He turns to the Old Testament and goes over it with them showing them what specific passages mean and how they apply to what his companions were living through. He grounds them better in Scriptures which were known by them but in a surface manner – he enlightens them to the deeper significance of what is written there. He connects things that previously they thought were separated – he underlines the ‘integrity’ of Scriptures. And in this manner, they come to see things differently and to see things in the light of hope and faith.

It is interesting how many of us have comments to make and positions to take on Scripture without even reading them. We are, to a large extent, scripturally illiterate. Many of us would be hesitant to take a position on quantum mechanics and yet, most of us have an opinion on what scriptures say and what they mean. It seems that when it comes to the Bible, everyone is an ‘expert’.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas