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religious fruit. Edited by Paul J. Achtemeier. Harper & Row, San Francisco. 1985.
P.308.

The Interpreter's Bible, Volume VII, provides us with these additional thoughts:

The DIFFICULTIES of the story should be frankly faced. To propose that Jesus
saw the tree was already diseased, and said so, DOES NO JUSTICE to the
undeniable curse in vs. 19. It also OVERLOOKS the fact that men then believed
that a righteous man's curse has POWER. To propose that Christ would blast a
tree, but not a human life, is SIMPLY UNCONVINCING. Would Christ deal thus
even with a tree, especially if -- as Mark's Gospel says -- it was NOT the season
for fruit? It is better to ASSUME that this is a rewriting of the parable of the
Jewish nation recorded in Luke 13:6-9. It is significant that Luke does not record
this story except as a parable. A tree, standing alone where all men could see it,
having promise of fruit but no fruit -- a fitting symbol of Jewry in the time of
Christ. -- Abingdon Cokesbury Press, N.Y. & Nashville. 1951. Pps.507-508.

James Hastings, in his Dictionary of the Bible, attempts to interpret Yeshua's
actions that day on the road from Bethany:

When our Lord came to the fig tree near Bethany (Mk.11:13), just before the
Passover, i.e. from late in March to the middle of April, "the time of figs was not
yet," that is, the season for ripe figs had not come. Among the VARIOUS
EXPLANATIONS of Christ's action which may be given, the only ones which
seem to us worthy of consideration are the following:

(1) That being hungry, and seeing from a distance that the tree had leaves, and
therefore was not dead, he came, not to find new figs, but to find and eat any figs
of the last season which might have remained over on the tree. The expression "if
haply he might find anything thereon" implies that he did NOT expect to find
much. One or two figs will often stay an empty stomach marvelously. According
to this OPINION, the offence of the fig tree was the fact of not having what must
have been a very exceptional relic of a former harvest.

(2) That, finding leaves, he knew that there should be young fruit, and hoped that
there might, even at that EARLY PERIOD, be "the first ripe figs," bikkurah.
According to this interpretation, the fault of the fig tree was in not having a
precocious fig or two before the time, "for the time of figs was not yet." We will
not dispute the possibility of finding a winter fig or two on a tree (ALTHOUGH
DURING A RESIDENCE OF THIRTY-THREE YEARS IN SYRIA WE HAVE
SEARCHED AND INQUIRED IN VAIN FOR THEM), or of the exceptionally
early maturing of some variety of figs, perhaps not now cultivated. Neither of
these theories, however, ACCORDS WITH OUR CONCEPTION OF CHRIST'S
JUSTICE. In neither case would the fig tree be blameworthy. We are not
accountable for extraordinary attainments in religion.