Ainea wrote: “...Ah, so you expect the man Jesus (who was fully human) would have the knowledge and attributes of God while in the flesh? That is assuming a lot, especially since He did not claim to be omnipresent, omnipotent, or omniscient. Since God cannot die, then if Jesus
was fully God while in the flesh the crucifixion could never have happened....”
Response: Are we to assume that the Holy Spirit was not at all times with Jesus? That is to say, the Holy Spirit was with Jesus & responsible for killing the fig tree, but not with Jesus moments before when Jesus didn’t know (omnisciently) from a distance that the fig tree did not have fruit but, again, was with Jesus when He told Jesus which sins to write in the dust of those who wanted to stone the WOMAN caught in
adultery?
Are we to believe that Jesus, God incarnate, suffered amnesia while in the flesh & couldn't remember His participation in the creation?
But let’s not forget what the allegedly inerrant Bible says according to Matthew: “...it was not the season of figs...” Assuming your contention is correct that Jesus did not possess the divine attribute of omniscience, he was, at least, a fully grown man when the incident of the fig tree occurred. Are you telling me a fully grown man living in that predominantly agricultural society wouldn’t have known what the village idiot knew, that is, at what time of year certain fruits were in season.
Please. Get real.
For more info regarding the Jesus & the Fig Tree, click the following link:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/figtree.htm
"...The problems are even bigger than the fact that Matthew has the fig tree withering right there on the spot, while Mark has it taking a day or so. That discrepency is standard fare in those "Bible Contradictions" books and is easily "explained" -- though that does not make it go away.
Let's look a little closer at what it says: First, Jesus did not simply curse the fig tree for show: he was hungry and was looking for something to eat (Mt 21:18, Mk 11:12).
Second, setting aside any notion of foreknowledge on Jesus' part, he should have known that Passover (in the springtime) is not fig season (Mk 11:13).
Why would anyone, prescient or otherwise, go looking for figs in the springtime?
Nowhere else have I seen this pointed out. Fundamentalists and evangelicals just sputter when I raise this question; they are not ready for it and often do not see the implications of it. If the New Testament is as accurate as these people would have us believe, its main character, Jesus, is a dolt.
Hyam Maccoby is more gentle than I. He simply mentions this passage as one of many elements building his argument that Jesus was arrested in the autumn, when a fig tree should have fruit, and that Jesus was executed the next spring. He says that the revisionists telescoped this part of the story to have Jesus in jail only a night or two.
Maccoby says that the Last Supper account is clearly a description of the Feast of Booths -- not the Passover meal. The note in Mark, "for the time of figs was not yet," was most likely a much later addendum to explain why there were no figs on the tree; however, it only confuses the issue as to why Jesus was looking for figs in the first place. If Maccoby is right -- that the Triumphal Entry and Jesus' arrest took place at the Feast of Booths -- some of the realistic, non-mythical elements in this story begin to make sense. A somewhat manic or otherwise unstable Jesus could easily have become upset over a barren fig tree, to the point of shouting curses at it..."
I have to go. Later.