The Fig Tree Outside of Bethany

Dr. David A. Wood, a Christian apologist and expert critic of Islam, speaks from time to time of The Principle of Embarrassment.  His principle states that in ancient historical texts, details that are embarrassing to the point of view of the writer are the most likely to have actually occurred.  

Though Wood applies the principle only to the Quran and Hadiths, the principle, if sound, applies also to the Bible.  Under the principle, then a leading candidate for the most likely New Testament passage to have actually occurred is Matthew 21:18–22 and Mark 11:20–25. 

The next day, when they had left Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if there was any fruit on it. But when He reached it, He found nothing on it except leaves, since it was not the season for figs. 14Then He said to the tree, “May no one ever eat of your fruit again.” And His disciples heard this statement.

So let's look at the statement not from the intent of the author of the passage, but from what it reveals.  It is not presented as a parable but as something that actually occurred.  Jesus was hungry, saw a fig tree, hoped that it would have figs, even though it was not the season for figs.  He was not only disappointed, but got angry at the tree and cursed it.

He did not laugh at himself, saying, "Silly me, for a moment I expected to find figs on a tree out of season!"  No, he cursed the tree.  For this to have made sense, the tree 

• Would have had to have had the ability to produce figs out of season
• Would have had to have had free will
• Would have to have known that Jesus was hungry and needed the tree to produce figs just for him
• Would have to have known that Jesus was not just an ordinary person, but was The Son of God
• Would have to have refused to produce figs for him on the spot.

Any one of these elements missing and his anger and his curse would not have made sense.  This is not a problem if one admits that the Bible was written by many different ordinary human beings over many centuries or millennia.  It is a challenge if one believes the Bible to have been divinely dictated.  

The standard response of most Christian apologists is to focus on the author's intent in order to distract from the question of the literal truth of the passage and what it says about Jesus if true.  

Evidence for Jesus's Resurrection

 David Wood, PhD, is a Christian apologist and critical expert on Islam.  Prior to his entertaining channel on YouTube, the only accessible critical source of information on Islam was theReligionOfPeace.com. 

Although in the past Wood spoke mostly about Islam (in order to defend Christianity), he does sometimes speak about Christianity, more so as time goes on.  His most doubtful assertion is that the Resurrection is the best documented historical event.  There is only a single non-Christian contemporary mention of the crucifixion:  by Tacitus.  “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of ... Pontius Pilatus”.  Tacitus, however, does not say where he learned of this.  Was it from Roman records, or from Christians?   There is no indication that the Romans kept records of their crucifixions.  

Since it is a given that the Resurrection is a Christian belief, then one might think that Wood’s claim could only be true if there was not a single piece of evidence of any other historical event of antiquity.  But he regards the Christian Biblical accounts as evidential.  

Wood does have some reasoning for this, however.  Since up to eleven of the apostles were martyrs, they would not have willingly gone to their deaths for the sake of something they knew to be a lie.

But there are many problems with this.  The logic only holds if the apostles were given the option at the point of the sword to renounce specifically their belief in the resurrection of Jesus.  There is no evidence that this was the case.  

Worthy of note is that there are many other accounts of people being resurrected in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments.  

Christians place a lot of emphasis on the Resurrection, even claiming that theirs is the only religion in which it could happen.  The Buddha lived 500 years before Jesus. Listed in the Tipitika (the Three Baskets, the Buddhist bible) are the powers that the Buddha had.  One of the powers he had, that he taught to his advanced students, was the ability to make copies of himself, that is, to appear in more than one place at the same time. Suppose Jesus developed this power by going to India in the missing 18 years in the Bible. (Ages 12 - 29)   They could then crucify a copy, leaving the original intact.  

In the Buddha’s teachings, the Dhamma, however, importance is given to seeing the reality of impermanence.  So such a stunt would have served no purpose to him.

I was doing sidewalk counseling today outside of the local abortion mill this morning, and had a conversation with a man who was passing by and was wondering why we were there.  He seemed to be slanted towards the pro-abort side, but he was civil, and seemed to have an analytical philosophical slant.  I talked about what we were doing there and a little bit about the Buddha’s position on abortion.   After talking for about 20 minutes, I ended up maintaining noble silence, and he left amicably enough.  He seemed to be thinking that talking woman out of killing their babies was inconsistent, but his arguments were odd and flawed.  

Thinking about the conversation later, I realized that the Angulimala Sutta was the Buddha’s charter for First Precept/Non-murder/pro-life outreach.  For those not familiar with the story of Angulimala, it goes like this:

In India at the time, there was a serial killer who wore a necklace made of the little fingers of his victims.  Thus he was called Angulimala (Finger Garland).  The traditional estimate of how many victims he had was 999, but all we know from the sutta itself is that it was at least 50 and probably a lot more.  The king would send groups of warriors out on horseback to deal with him, and Angulimala would kill them all.  The king asked the Buddha if he would do something about the problem, and the Buddha assented.

The Buddha set out on foot to meet Angulimala.  When he was approaching the area where Angulimala was, many locals would yell out to him, “Do not go there priest!  Turn around!  Angulimala the bandit is there!”  But the Buddha continued walking serenely.

 Finally, the Buddha reached the area where Angulimala was.  Angulimala came running after him to kill him, but the Buddha continued to walk serenely.  Though Angulimala was chasing after him, and the Buddha was walking serenely, Angulimala could not catch him.  Angulimala stopped and yelled, “Stop priest!”  The Buddha said back to him, “I have stopped, you have not.”  Angulimala was puzzled, because he knew that sages did not lie.  So he asked the Buddha, “I have stopped running, but you continue to walk.  How is that you say that you have stopped but I have not?”  The Enlightened One replied, “I have forever stopped harming sentient beings.  You have not.”  

The Buddha persuaded Angulimala to stop killing people.  Angulimala became a monk, and eventually attained enlightenment.

Some time later, a pregnant woman visited the venerable monk Angulimala.  She had reason to believe that the childbirth would be dangerous.  Angulimala asked the Buddha about it.  The Buddha told him that he should tell the woman, “By virtue of that I have never harmed a sentient being since my birth in the noble life, may you and your baby be well.”  And, indeed, the baby was born fine and the mother was unharmed.  

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.086.than.html

Book of Job

To really understand the Book of Job, it is necessary to read Carl Jung's Answer to Job.

Chip off the old block

In the 1980's I studied and practiced Buddhism at the Baltimore Dharma Study Group, part of Vajradhatu,  under the direction of (deep breath) Vajracarya, the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche.  Actually, when I started he was just called Rinpoche, but he was given progressively higher titles later on, such as Vidyadhara.

Tibetan Buddhism teaches devotion to the teacher, a teaching not expounded by the Buddha.  In time, I saw Trungpa's behavior, in particular the meat-eating, and I realized that to honor him was a violation of Bodhisattva vows of compassion to all beings.  I now also believe that devotion to a teacher (other than the Buddha) is a subtle violation of Buddhist Refuge Vows.  (The Buddha gave limited exceptions to this, such as a junior monk will study with a teacher for five years, while following the other Vinaya rules.)

Trungpa had many other behaviors inconsistent with the Buddha's teachings, such as drinking alcohol  (he suffered from untreated alcoholism), rampant adultery, etc.  He died at the age of 53 from cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease and lung disease.

He appointed his student Osel Tendzin as his Vajra Regent and successor, calling him "A good example of someone who has followed his guru's instructions."  After Trungpa's early death, I had hoped that Tendzin might be an improvement.  But the bisexual Osel Tendzin attained even greater fame when he gave AIDS to some of his teenage students, without telling them he was HIV positive.

Despite the awe-inspiring defense mechanisms of Trungpa's fiercely loyal and devoted students, the Vajra Regent scandals broke apart Vajradhatu.  What survived was a side organization, Shambhala, which fell under the rule of his only legitimate son, the Sawang, Jamgon Mipham (later promoted from Sawang to Sakyong).

I had hoped that the Sawang might turn out to be an improvement over his Dad.  When I found out that he had run a marathon, I was encouraged.  Trungpa spent the last 20 years of his life half-paralyzed from an accident he had when his car ran into a joke shop when he was speeding at 85 miles an hour with his underage girlfriend while wearing monk's robes and had an alcoholic blackout.  To his credit, he realized that by crashing into a joke shop the universe was trying to tell him something, and he stopped wearing monk's robes.  This was the only example of insight I ever saw him exhibit.  (He never acknowledged, though, that he had not actually been a monk for many years before that, and thus had been an impostor by continuing to wear robes. )

So the Sawang/Sakyong running a marathon seemed a clear indication that he was not his father.  I had also seen evidence that Shambhala had become more sympathetic to vegetarianism since my departure.  Unfortunately, I just discovered that the Sakyong fell into at least some of the faults of his father.  More information on the scandals can be easily found by searching for "shambhala mipham" (without quotes).  Though the Sakyong had imposed loyalty vows on his senior students, I see that there were many who had been in his inner circle who supported the accusers.  This seems like an improvement over the way similar things were handled in the Trungpa/Tendzin days.

After I left Vajradahatu, I studied and practiced for a few years with the first Zen group in Baltimore, the Zen Center of Baltimore led by  Sensei Jim Regensburg.  Jim's behavior was not very different than Trungpa's, but at least he didn't teach devotion to himself, so that was a big improvement.  He has a J.D., and told me one time in the 1980's that in the U.S. truth is not a legal defense from slander accusations.  I don't think that is true, but with that in mind, I won't say too much else about him here.  All of his core students eventually became disappointed and left.  I formed and led a small group composed of his former students called The Essential Meditation Society, which lasted a year or two, as I recall.

Then I found the Theravada, which is both more authentic and a big improvement, and which I'll discuss (more positively) at another time.

Going Beyond Morality

Since morality is such a rare and precious jewel in the world, it is a safe bet that most of the people who talk about "going beyond morality" have not even achieved the most basic level of morality, let alone going beyond it.

Ascension

Jesus was the fourth person in the Bible to rise from the dead.  So it is funny that such a big deal is made out of Easter.  You might think that his ascension into heaven would be a better cause of celebration, because that happened only once.  But no, he was the third person in the Bible to ascend into heaven.  But yet, even though the Bible is clear about this, he denied it: 

"And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man".

Faith is the true miracle.  

https://bible.org/illustration/accounts-people-raised-dead
https://carm.org/did-anyone-ascend-heaven-jesus-or-not-john-3-13