ContradictionsReading order 54Bible context 3 min read
When did Jesus curse the fig tree?
The two narratives reverse the order of the fig tree curse and Jesus' expulsion of temple traders.
- Textual conflict
- Direct contradiction
- The quoted passages make incompatible claims about the same subject under the same conditions. Little additional inference is needed.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
The parallel journeys explicitly reverse the fig-tree curse and temple expulsion, but the disputed sequence is a supporting narrative detail.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Mark places the fig tree curse before the temple expulsion
And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it. And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Mark 11:12-17
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Mark 11
Context affects the comparison
Matthew describes the fig tree withering immediately. Mark separates the curse from the disciples' observation of the withered tree the next morning, with the temple episode between them. The time an event happens and the time someone notices it should be distinguished when comparing the sequences.