In a prior blog post, “The two-part story of the withered fig tree,” I argued that the Matthean and the Markan accounts can be harmonized by realizing that Mark is employing a flash-forward. According to Matthew’s account, it is after the temple cleansing that (1) Jesus curses the fig tree, (2) the fig tree withers, and (3) the disciples note the withering (Matt. 21:18–20). Whereas according to Mark’s account, Jesus curses the fig tree before the temple cleansing, which the disciples don’t notice until after the temple cleansing (Mark 11:12–13; 20–21). My contention was that Mark’s “on the following day, when they came from Bethany” (Mark 11:12) was actually a quick flash-forward to the next day, before Mark continues his story with the present-day trip to Jerusalem (11:15).
Do we agree that this is a legitimate literary technique, which doesn’t undermine the reliability or inerrancy of the text? For those who haven’t previously considered the use of narrative flashbacks and flash-forwards in the Gospels, let’s review several biblical and extra-biblical narratives where these are used.
The cleansed leper. In Mark 1:43-45, Jesus sternly charges the leper that he should tell no one, other than showing himself to the priest. Nonetheless, the narrator reports that the leper spread the news widely, so that “Jesus could no longer openly enter a town” (1:45 ESV). This is looking forward in the narrative, beyond the immediate events.
The Gerasenes man. In Mark 5:1–6, the narrator explains the backstory of the man with the unclean spirit. He had lived among the tombs, and he had previously broken free of shackles and chains. “Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones” (5:5). This is a flashback.
John’s beheading. In Mark 6:14–29, Herod hears of the miracles which Jesus and his disciples have been performing. Some were saying that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead. Mark then begins an extended flashback, which touches on John’s arrest, Herodias’s grudge, Herod’s fear, the dance, the promise, the execution, the platter, the recovery of the body, etc.
Mary of Bethany. In John 11:2, Mary of Bethany is introduced as the one who would shortly anoint the Lord and wipe “his feet with her hair.”
A doomed spy. In the Illiad, someone “sets out to spy on the Greeks,” but then the narrator reveals “‘but in fact he was never to return from the ships and to bring his report back to Hector’ (Il. 10.336–337).”1
Alexander’s commitment. In Plutarch’s biography of Alexander, the story is told “of Barsine, the widow of Memnon, whom Alexander takes as his mistress and who is ‘the only woman he was intimate with prior to his marriage’ (Alex. 21.7–9).”2
Callirhoe’s funeral. In Chariton’s fictional novel, Callirhoe, a narrative prolepsis (flash-forward) anticipates how events will play out later in the story: “And what was done with the intention of paying honour to the dead girl started a train of greater events. (1.6.5)”3
Cnemon’s joy. In Heliodorus’s novel, there are several examples of narratorial prolepsis which John Morgan highlights. First, as “Theagenes and Cnemon make their way to the bandit island to release Charicleia from the cave, the narrator says, ‘Little did he know what sorrows awaited him there. (2.2.2).”4 A subsequent scene with Theagenes and Charicleia is also cited, in which the narrator offers a peek into the future: that as “prisoners in chains … [they] were now being not so much led as escorted in captive state, guarded by those who were soon to be their subjects. (8.17.5)”5
The point of all this is to make the case that it is reasonable to propose that Mark has split the episode of the fig tree cursing into two parts, by introducing a flash-forward before the temple cleansing and effectively sandwiching the cleansing within the fig tree cursing episode.
Why would Mark want to do this? Even in Matthew’s account, isn’t it clear that by cursing the fig tree, Jesus was making a theological statement concerning Jerusalem and the temple?
Here’s my working theory. Matthew was written to the Jews, who would be well aware that the OT frequently used the withering of a fruitless fig tree as a “prophetic symbol of Israel under God’s punishment (Jer. 8:13; Hos. 2:12; 9:10, 16–17; Mic. 7:1–8).”6 However, Mark’s Roman/Latin audience would not be as likely to know of this OT symbolism. Therefore, Mark was bringing clearer focus to the connection between the fig tree cursing and the events in the temple by crafting the sandwich structure, which even the Romans/Latins would follow.
Why are we auguring into this particular sequential disconnect between the Gospels? Because the skeptics of inerrancy flag this disconnect to argue that many evangelical Christians have a poor understanding of what the biblical texts represent. For example, Michael Licona accuses Matthew of having manipulated the actual fig tree chronology, as reported by Mark, by compressing the story to create a sequence of events which is not chronologically accurate—while Matthew at the same time tells his audience that his sequence is chronologically accurate, by means of his “at once” (ESV) or “immediately” (NIV) statements (Matt. 21:19–20).7 Licona therefore uses this as yet another piece of evidence that the Gospels conform to Greco-Roman biographies, as he understands them, which allowed for creative embellishments and non-historic displacement of events, and he therefore calls for the adoption of what he calls a view of “flexible inerrancy.”8 I suggest that what gets some of these Christian scholars into trouble is their rejection of an early Matthew, and their subsequent failure to work through the implications of such on the subsequent Gospels.
- Irene J. F. de Jong, “Introduction. Narratological Theory on Time,” in Time in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. Irene J. F. de Jong and Rene Nunlist (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 5. ↩︎
- Mark Beck, “Plutarch: The Biographer at His Work,” in Time in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. Irene J. F. de Jong and Rene Nunlist (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 401. ↩︎
- John R. Morgan, “Chariton,” in Time in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. Irene J. F. de Jong and Rene Nunlist (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 441. ↩︎
- John R. Morgan, “Heliodorus,” in Time in Ancient Greek Literature, ed. Irene J. F. de Jong and Rene Nunlist (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 496. ↩︎
- Ibid., 497. ↩︎
- Rodney Reeves, Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 413, ProQuest Ebook Central. ↩︎
- Michael R. Licona, Jesus, Contradicted: Why the Gospels Tell the Same Story Differently (Grand Rapids, MI: HarperCollins Christian Publishing, 2024), 109, 136, 148. ↩︎
- Ibid., 206-08. ↩︎
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