Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
The fig tree story is what motivated me to research the Bible...for hidden meaning...I still have a lot of questions...
What is happening in Israel now might be related to this little story after all...
Bishop Spong discusses the fig tree in some of his books. (He wrote more than a dozen; I've read only one.)
In the synoptic Gospels the triumphant Palm Sunday occurs one week before the Crucifixion. Spong thinks this chronology is wrong, and that the triumphant Palm Sunday coincided with the Feast of Tabernacles in autumn, not in spring. (Sayings cited in the relevant Gospel accounts are associated with the Feast of Tabernacles.) In particular he places the triumphant Palm Sunday several months AFTER the Crucifixion: It is the triumph of the Resurrection which is being celebrated. Simon Peter et al mourned Jesus for some months, then returned to Jerusalem in triumph when they discovered the Resurrection.
(Note that John's Gospel (2:13ff) places the rampage in the Temple immediately after the wedding with wine, early in the ministry rather than a week before the Crucifixion. This further suggests that Mark's chronology is distorted.)
I don't understand what Spong thinks of the fig tree (and he doesn't mention "nodules" as the YouTube does), except that figs WERE in season in the revised Palm Sunday chronology. (But is "not in season" a cryptic clue to the correct chronology? Unlikely?)