2. History of Reception and Interpretation of John 1.48

The history of interpretation of the fig tree in John 1.48 has developed along several axes which can be traced through antiquity, the Middle Ages, early modernity and up to the present. The most literal view states that the fig tree is intended as a real object – a realium – beneath which Jesus perceived Nathanael through supernatural knowledge.Footnote ³ This view is perhaps the simplest approach to the question, but it is unable to fully account for the rhetorical weight the fig tree has to carry in the Johannine call story. Jesus’ clairvoyant perception of Nathanael’s physical location cannot explain the greeting included in v. 47 – Jesus could not have known that Philip’s brother was free of deceit, had he not seen him doing something specific, or had the fig tree by itself revealed his character.Footnote ⁴ Consequently, even when considered a realium, the fig tree carries added significance which would enable Jesus to correctly identify Nathanael as one ἐν ᾧ δόλος οὐκ ἔστιν.Footnote ⁵ Furthermore, Nathanael’s acclamation in v. 49 does not recognise Jesus explicitly as a prophetic figure, which suggests that supernatural (in)sight is not what struck him. Consequently, the exegetical view that, paraphrasing Gertrude Stein, ‘a fig tree is a fig tree is a fig tree’ is, on its own, insufficient to explain the logic of John 1.47–51.

Another interpretation of the Johannine fig tree is based on the widespread rabbinic motif which identifies this specific kind of plant as a place for the study of the Law. Midrash Qoheleth Rabbah 5.11.2 on Eccles 5.11 transmits a story, attributed to R. Nehemiah, about R. Ḥiyya (or, in other versions, R. Akiba or R. Simeon b. Ḥalafta) and his disciples choosing a spot beneath a fig tree for their Torah study. The owner of the fig tree considers it a mitzvah to have them there, but one day he does not get up before sunrise to gather the figs which are consequently destroyed by worms.Footnote ⁶ According to the key to the interpretation of dreams about plants, provided by R. Ḥiyya b. Abba (b. Ber. 57a), dreams about a fig tree are a sign of Torah observance. This interpretation is based on Prov 27.18: ‘Anyone who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit’ (NRSV), which is used to the same exegetical end in Bamidbar Rabbah 21.16 on Num 27.6, with a parallel in Midrash Tanhuma, Pinchas 11.1. The rabbinic comparanda have been accepted as the most promising way of illuminating v. 48 by several modern commentators.Footnote ⁷

Here, one should also note a related Patristic interpretative intuition that the fig tree is to be understood as representing the Jewish Law wholesale. This view is attested already in Tatian’s Diatessaron which, if Ephrem’s commentary is to be followed, had Jesus say that Nathanael is ‘a true Israelite scribe’.Footnote ⁸ While commenting on Cant 6.9c–d, Gregory of Nyssa digresses about the Johannine passage: διὸ καταλιπὼν ὁ Ναθαναὴλ τὴν τοῦ νόμου συκῆν, ἧς ἡ σκιὰ πρὸς τὴν μετουσίαν τοῦ φωτὸς διεκώλυε, καταλαμβάνει τὸν τὰ φύλλα τῆς συκῆς διὰ τὴν τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἀκαρπίαν ἀποξηραίνοντα, ‘Therefore Nathanael leaves behind the fig tree of the law, whose shade was preventing his participation in the light, and lays hold on the One who withers the leaves of the fig tree because they fail to produce good fruit’ (In Cant. 15).Footnote ⁹ This is also the view of Ambrose, Exp. Luc. 8.90 on Luke 18.43, who, while comparing Nathanael to Zacchaeus, claims that the former sat under the fig tree and thus was under the Law, while the latter got on top of it and so was above and beyond the Torah.Footnote ¹⁰ A cognate exegetical view might be transmitted by Augustine, Tract. Ev. Io. 7.17, where he states that Nathanael was educated in the Law: intellegere enim debemus ipsum Nathanaelem eruditum et peritum legis fuisse, ‘we ought to understand this Nathanael to have been learned and skilful in the Law’ (but cf. 7.21 where, interestingly, the fig tree is said to represent sinfulness, based on Gen 3.7).

However, the symbolic equivalence between the fig tree and the study of the Torah cannot be taken for granted. R. Hiyya and his disciples do not treat the fig tree simply as a natural place for Torah study, but instead are placed there because it serves the story – just as figs have to be collected in their proper time, so God appoints each person’s death at the correct time. Strack adduces alternative types of trees as study spots in rabbinic literature. According to b. Ḥag. 14b, R. Johanan b. Zakkai offered an exposition of Ezekiel’s Merkabah vision to another rabbi under an olive tree. Shir HaShirim Rabbah 4.4.9 conveys R. Aḥa’s comment on Cant 4.3, stating the Torah can be studied under a variety of trees, with no clear preference for the fig tree.Footnote ¹¹ Furthermore, the oft-cited rabbinic passages about studying the Torah in the shade of a fig tree are scantier than many commentators take them to be. More importantly, the midrashic and Talmudic evidence referenced above does not allow one to claim that the association of a fig tree with Torah study emerged already in the Second Temple period. The conclusion here must be that it is possible but not really likely that the Johannine audience, when hearing about Nathanael under a fig tree, would immediately think of him as devoted to the study of the Law.

Another attempt at solving the apparent mystery of the Johannine fig tree was made by Moule in his short note on the passage.Footnote ¹² He takes the cue from Daniel’s cross-examination of the two elders accusing Susanna of having sex with a man; when asked to point to a place where it happened, one mentions a mastic tree (Sus 54), the other an evergreen oak (Sus 58). Moule argues that Daniel’s question ὑπὸ τί δένδρον; ‘under what tree?’ was a typical question to verify one’s credibility, citing an apparent parallel in m. Sanh. 5.2; b. Sanh. 41a where, during an interrogation, R. Johanan ben Zakkai inquired as to the exact kind of fig tree. The problem with this reading is that it relies on very little evidence connected to a specific forensic context (fig tree as part of a crime scene), which is not relevant to the exchange between Nathanael and Jesus in John 1.47–51 where, most importantly, the question ‘under what tree?’ is not asked.

An ingenious exegetical proposal as to the significance of the Johannine fig tree has been put forward by Koester.Footnote ¹³ He connects John 1.48 to a constellation of biblical passages which proclaim that the season of rest – past or future – will take place under vines and fig trees (1 Kings 5.5 MT/4.25 English; Mic 4.4; Zech 3.10; 1 Macc 14.12). Of special relevance is Zech 3.10: בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא נְאֻם יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת תִּקְרְאוּ אִישׁ לְרֵעֵהוּ אֶל־תַּחַת גֶּפֶן וְאֶל־תַּחַת תְּאֵנָה, “‘On that day,” says the Lord of Hosts, “everyone will call their neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree.”’Footnote ¹⁴ Koester argues that Nathanael being found by Philip under a fig tree evokes the eschatological rest prophesied in Zech 3.10 as well as its co-text, namely the messianic promise of God’s servant, ‘the Branch’ (3.8), thus confirming Jesus’ identity and status. While Koester is right to point to a web of Zecharianic intertext in the Fourth Gospel, the claim about John 1.48 evoking Zech 3.8, 10 seems, while not impossible, then rather weak. John does not call Jesus ‘the Branch of David’; indeed, the Davidic origin of the Messiah (not of Jesus in particular) is brought up only in John 7.42. It is by no means certain that John internalises and uses Zechariah’s Messianic terminology and that he could have had Zech 3.10 in mind when describing Jesus’ encounter with Nathanael. Moreover, in Zechariah, the vine and the fig tree represent end-time rest – would this imply that Nathanael enjoyed the eschatological respite before he received Jesus’ call? Another problem with Koester’s reading is that it requires the mention of the fig tree to function as a synecdoche for the whole idiomatic phrase ‘under the vine and the fig tree’. It is unlikely that John would have unpicked the locution and left only its second part.Footnote ¹⁵

The difficulties of the interpretations just discussed led several commentators to plead ignorance in this case which is a reasonable though not exactly satisfactory position.Footnote ¹⁶ The argument of this article is that an alternative exegetical path is available. It has been first pointed to in passing by Joachim Jeremias in his discussion of Nathanael’s calling.Footnote ¹⁷ He notes the interpretation of the fig tree as suggesting Torah study but rejects it, claiming that a study hall would be the usual place for such an activity. Instead, he adduces several apocryphal and rabbinic sources, as well as examples from early Christian art, which suggest that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Gen 2–3 was seen by later ancient interpreters as a fig tree. The next section will develop this line of thinking and support it with additional evidence.

3. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as a Fig Tree

The species of the tree first mentioned in Gen 2.9 was a matter of interpretative debate in the Second Temple period and later. The full contours of the debate are only visible from several passages in rabbinic literature which note several relevant dendrological identifications.

B. Ber. 40a lists the following opinions on the issue:

An almost identical discussion is also found in b. Sanh. 70a-b.Footnote ¹⁸ Of the three options, wheat is justified through a reference to human upbringing, whereas vine and fig tree are apparently borne out by the biblical text itself. R. Neḥemya derives his proposal from noticing that the fig tree is the only named plant in the narrative of the encounter of Adam and Eve with the serpent, making it an educated guess.

A more extensive discussion comes from the commentary on Gen 2.9 in Bereshit Rabbah 15.7, with very close parallels in Pesikta Rabbati 42.1–2 and Pesikta de Rab-Kahana 20.6. In this version, R. Meir is said to have proposed wheat, suggesting it is associated with knowledge and that it used to grow as tall as cedars. R. Yehuda b. Ilai, taking his cue from Deut 32.32, identifies the tree as vine due to the sorrow and bitterness it brought into the world. R. Abba of Acco sees it as etrog whose wood he considers edible, in harmony with a literal reading of Gen 3.6: טֹוב הָעֵץ לְמאֲכָל, ‘the tree was good for food’. It is R. Yose who puts forward the fig tree as the correct answer, and supports his claim with the reference to Gen 3.7 and the tunics of fig leaves. Finally, R. Azariah and Yehuda b. Simon, quoting the opinion of R. Yehoshua b. Levi, claim that God would never reveal what species the Tree of Knowledge was in order not to perpetually shame humankind by having it see such a tree in daily life. The discussion of the Tree from Gen 2–3 found in Bereshit Rabbah is more extensive than the one in the Bavli, but the two share the exegetical explanation for identifying it as a fig tree. Both R. Neḥemya and R. Yose think that the story already contains all of the information necessary – the Tree must have been a fig tree because this would explain why Adam and Eve’s tunics are made specifically from fig leaves. In a different way, the text of the story inspires R. Eleazar who transmits R. Yose b. Zimra’s opinion on the matter in Qoheleth Rabbah 5.10.1. He thinks that it is only the fig tree that fulfils all of the criteria posited in Gen 3.6 – the tree must be good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and what one needs to desire to become wise.

In general, the rabbis see two kinds of plants as the most serious contenders for the honour of being the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, i.e., the vine and the fig tree. The latter, emerging in Gen 3 itself, is proposed by the authorities quoted above, whereas the former, characterised by bitterness and intoxicating qualities, is mentioned in this role also in later medieval midrashim. Vayikrah Rabbah 12.1 and Esther Rabbah 5.1 both transmit the saying of R. Yehuda b. Ilai known from Bereshit Rabbah, while Bamidbar Rabbah 10.2 includes a warning to the gentiles not to oppress Israel, symbolised by a vine (based on Prov 23.30; Isa 27.2), since they would be punished just like Eve who ate from the vine.

The dispute about the species of the Tree of Knowledge is attested outside of rabbinic literature, with the two dominant identifications being, again, the vine and, importantly for the present argument, the fig tree.Footnote ¹⁹ In some manuscripts of the Greek Life of Adam and Eve, also known as the Apocalypse of Moses, Adam confesses to having eaten the fruit and describes his immediate reaction: λαβοῦσα δὲ φύλλα ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἐποίησα ἐμαυτῇ περιζώματα, καὶ ἐστὶν παρ᾽ αὐτῶν τῶν φυτῶν ἐξ ὧν ἔφαγον, ‘I took leaves from it and made myself a loincloth, and it was from these plants that I have eaten’ (20.5).Footnote ²⁰ The date of composition and the provenance of this document are notoriously difficult to ascertain, but it is certainly reflective of the exegetical traditions and debates current in late Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity.Footnote ²¹ The same can be claimed for another text, namely the gnostic Testimony of Truth (NHC IX 3).Footnote ²² In the course of his homiletic instruction, the author offers a radical reinterpretation of three Pentateuchal depictions of serpents, from Gen 3, Exod 7, and Num 21. In the retelling of the first passage, Adam’s meeting with God is narrated in the following way:

The text does not offer an explicit identification of the Tree as a fig tree, but this is made all but certain by connecting Adam’s confession to be under the fig tree and God realising his transgression. This view is strengthened by this link being made explicit in On the Origin of the World (NHC II 5 110.22), where the leaves of the Tree of Knowledge are fig-like. The Testimony of Truth, though likely dating from the last second or early third century, is steeped in earlier Jewish exegetical practice like perhaps no other text from the Nag Hammadi library. As such, it can be reasonably perceived as a window into the interpretative discussions contemporary with the Fourth Gospel and germane to its composition.

Two later texts also deserve mention. One Syriac recension of the Testament of Adam, a composite work reproducing the supposed deathbed discourse of the first man to his son Seth, puts into the latter’s mouth a question about the type of fruit he consumed in the Garden of Eden, with Adam responding that it was a fig tree.Footnote ²⁴ A late ancient exegetical comment, ascribed possibly to Theodore of Mopsuestia and preserved in the catena to Genesis known as the Collectio Coisliniana (BnF Ms Coislinianus 113), states the following in relation to Gen 3.7–8:

The literary picture can be completed by a much later source, namely the Syriac Book of the Bee, a work weaving together theological and historiographic narratives, composed ca. 1222 by Solomon of Akhlat, the bishop of Basra. The text makes a variety of claims about the role of fig trees in biblical history. First of all, it identifies the Tree of Knowledge as a fig tree:

The interpretative imagination of the author or his sources does not stop there. In ch. 30, Adam is said to have taken a branch from the fig tree, from which he and Eve had previously eaten, as a sort of memento and used it as a staff. It later served also his descendants, including Abraham, who used it to smash his household idols, and finally Moses, who witnessed it turn into a serpent during the theophany of the burning bush. In Solomon of Akhlat’s retelling, the wood from the fateful fig tree served to make Jesus’ cross (ch. 44). Finally, he also includes the reference to Nathanael being hidden under a fig tree (this time without a stated connection to the Garden of Eden) as a child during Herod’s slaughter of the innocents (ch. 39).Footnote ²⁷ The Book of the Bee is of course far removed from Second Temple or early Christian contexts and could not be seen as straightforwardly reflective of much earlier debates, but it manifests the possibilities of the text and develops intuitions that one sees in the earlier sources.

Moving beyond texts, the intuition that the Tree of Knowledge was a fig tree found noticeable expression in early Christian art. Jeremias references two sarcophagi with Adam and Eve scenes, involving fig trees. The first one, noted by Garrucci in the fifth volume of his Storia della arte cristiana, dating the mid-fourth century and found in the Lateran, depicts the first humans flanking the Tree of Knowledge around which the serpent is coiled with a distinctly fig-shaped piece of fruit in his mouth (see Figure 1).Footnote ²⁸ The second one, a much more famous Roman sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, a prefectus urbi who died in 359, contains a similar scene where the Tree has lobed, fig-like leaves, especially visible over Adam’s head (see Figure 2).Footnote ²⁹ Later art did not continue this exegetical trope with a rare, though very significant exception, namely Michelangelo’s The Fall and Expulsion from Paradise, a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel where the leaves and the fruit unmistakably suggest that the painter wanted to depict the Tree of Knowledge as a fig tree (see Figure 3).Footnote ³⁰ This visualisation of the Fall narrative stands as the apex of the pre-modern exegetical intuition, attested sparsely but diversely, which identified the Tree as a fig tree. This possibility, rooted like no other in the narrative of Genesis itself and attested already in the Second Temple period, should be taken into account when discussing the curious role of the plant mentioned in John 1.47.

Figure 1.

A panel depicting Adam and Eve from a fourth-century sarcophagus from the Lateran (R. Garrucci, Storia della arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli della chiesa, V.123–4 (plate 382,3)) © PDM 1.0

Figure 2.

A panel depicting Adam and Eve from a cast copy of the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (ca. 359 CE) © Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Figure 3.

Michelangelo’s fresco from the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican (ca. 1509–1512), depicting the Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise © Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

To complete and balance this picture, one must note the other alternative, namely, seeing the Tree in the Garden of Eden as a vine. Apart from the rabbinic opinions from Midrash Rabbah and the Bavli quoted above,Footnote ³¹ a few pseudepigraphic texts, with typically obscure origins and convoluted transmission histories, suggest that it was a vine that Adam and Eve ate from. First Enoch 32.4, likely the earliest text preserving the traces of the debate, offers a list of characteristics of the tree, among which is ‘and its fruit like the clusters of the vine – very cheerful’.Footnote ³² In a related fashion, Apocalypse of Abraham 23.6 characterises the fruit of the Tree as being similar in appearance to grapes. Third (or Greek) Apocalypse of Baruch 4.8 contains a dialogue between an angelus interpres and Baruch who asks about the species of the tree that deceived Adam, and receives a response identifying it as a vine planted by the evil Samael.Footnote ³³ Just like the fig tree, vine was considered to be a viable interpretative option in the discussions about the species of the Tree of Knowledge in Eden in the Second Temple period and among some later Christians and rabbinic Jews, likely due to its intoxicating qualities.

This section mustered a range of different evidence to show that the author and early readers of the Gospel of John could have easily made the connection between the fig tree and the story of Gen 3. Such a connection was made repeatedly in apocryphal, gnostic and rabbinic sources. It was part of a larger exegetical speculation about the species of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with multiple different trees and plants being proposed, notably the vine. The next section will show that the connection between the interpretations of Gen 3 illuminates Jesus’ claim in John 1.48 and opens up new avenues of understanding of the Johannine text.

4. New Interpretative Possibilities

Assuming that the author of the Fourth Gospel was familiar with the debates surrounding the species of the Tree of Knowledge, what would be the purpose of making Jesus refer to a fig tree? To put this question slightly differently, if his first hearers and readers did indeed associate the tree with what they knew of those debates, what did they conclude?

In narrative terms, Jesus recalling having seen Nathanael under the fig tree would mirror God finding Adam near the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Nathanael would thus take the place of somebody who hides themselves due to a serious transgression. In John, the logic of God discovering Adam and Eve’s transgression and punishing them for it is reversed and overturned. While Genesis characterises God as actually finding out about what the first humans did – something that the gnostic author of The Testimony of Truth thought incredible – the Johannine Jesus knows Nathanael beforehand, suggesting a level of prescience. In Genesis, the punitive sentence follows from the admission of guilt on Adam’s part, whereas Jesus declares Nathanael to be guileless before the latter even utters a word. This pre-emptive remission of sins resonates with Jesus’ mission as announced by John the Baptist (1.29; John never claims that the Baptist’s own activity had this purpose). Furthermore, Jesus takes up the role that the Creator God performs in Genesis, namely visiting his creation. The narrative contains a Christological trope, connecting or even identifying Jesus with God, very much in the vein of the Johannine Prologue (1.3, 11). This view is confirmed by his response to Nathanael’s acclamation of him as a rabbi, the Son of God and the king of Israel (1.49) – the promise of things still greater indicates that these titles are not exhaustive of Jesus’ identity.

The oblique reference to Gen 3 in the story of Nathanael’s calling contributes to the larger picture of the Johannine interaction with the early chapters of the first book of the Torah.Footnote ³⁴ Commentators agree that the opening of the Gospel consciously plays with the language and ideas of Gen 1, most obviously in the repetition of the first words of Gen 1.1 LXX: Ἐν ἀρχῇ in John 1.1. Garden imagery, redolent of the idea of Eden, is strongly present in the Johannine Passion narrative. Unlike in the Synoptics, Gethsemani, where Jesus is arrested, is called κῆπος, ‘a garden’, in John 18.1, 26. Jesus’ tomb – again, in a stark difference to the other canonical Gospels – is located in a garden, according to 19.41, explaining why Mary Magdalen mistakes Jesus for a gardener in 20.15. The latter reference is superficially erroneous, but contains deeper insight, suggesting that Jesus plays the role of God in his own garden.Footnote ³⁵

As noted in the introduction, Jesus’ exchange with Nathanael leads up to the saying about the Son of Man acting as a ladder for angels in v. 51. This verse has attracted significant attention of scholars due to its potential relationship with Jewish exegetical tradition based on Gen 28.12. Most importantly, Quispel and Rowland have posited that John might have known the early Jewish esoteric traditions about angels gazing at Jacob because his features were simultaneously represented on the divine throne.Footnote ³⁶ Making Jesus take up Jacob’s place is further signal of John’s divine Christology and of his familiarity with Jewish exegesis and mysticism, which he puts on display in the immediate textual vicinity of the fig tree episode. Merkavah literature which, though compiled significantly later, transmits and develops mystical themes circulating already in the Second Temple period, exhibits noticeable interest in reimagining the Garden of Eden.Footnote ³⁷ In John 1.47–51, neither Jesus nor Nathanael are mundane interlocutors – instead, Jesus is an exalted being connecting the heavenly and earthly realms, while his soon-to-be follower is a morally pure Israelite visionary, taking a place underneath the same tree under which Adam lost sight of God’s glory but now in order to see this glory anew.

Finally, taking leave of Nathanael, one could study more broadly the implications of the debate about the species of the Tree of Knowledge for John. As was evidenced in the previous section, the other commonly shared opinion on the topic was that the Tree was indeed a vine. This plant, unlike the fig tree, has a sustained significance throughout the Fourth Gospel. Immediately after the encounter with Nathanael, Jesus and his entourage attend the wedding at Cana (from where Nathanael himself hails, see John 21.2) where he performs his first public sign, namely the turning of water into wine (2.1–11). Without entering the complex debates about the ritual and theological meaning of this event, John could be seen as transforming the significance of the vine and its products, associated with Adam’s transgression as well as drunkenness, by having Jesus produce it miraculously for a marriage feast which in and of itself reflects the union of the first humans. Vine emerges again as part of Jesus’ farewell discourse when he identifies himself with it: Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινὴ καὶ ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ γεωργός ἐστιν, ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-dresser’ (John 15.1). These words in a way explain the events at Cana – Jesus’ identity as the vine is logically connected to the sudden appearance of wine in place of water. While the consumption of the fruit – again, often taken by ancient interpreters to be grapes – brought death upon Adam, the consumption of the new vine, i.e., Jesus, has life-giving effects (see 6.53–6; 7.37–8). Finally, John mentions wine, albeit of the sour, vinegar-like kind (ὄξος), in relation to the crucifixion when Jesus expresses his thirst and is given sour wine, after which he cries out, ‘It is finished’ and dies (19.28–30). The Evangelist’s play with the Genesis narrative continues, as Adam and Eve’s transgression and Jesus’ obedient death arise from the same fruit. Understanding the vine in the Fourth Gospel within the Second Temple exegetical interest in the Tree of Knowledge heightens its importance, and makes it all the more probable that the Johannine author did indeed engage in those debates.

5. Johannine Polysemy and Conclusions

This article showed that none of the modern interpretations of Jesus’ reference to the fig tree in the call of Nathanael is completely satisfactory. Furthermore, it argued for the inherent plausibility of interpreting John 1.48 as containing an allusion to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, understood as a fig tree. Finally, John can be seen as participating in the exegetical debate and speculation about Gen 3 also through the references to the vine and wine later in his Gospel. The purpose of this contribution is not to claim that connecting Nathanael’s fig tree to the story of Adam and Eve is the only plausible way of understanding John 1.47–51. Instead, this article proposes that it is the polysemy, i.e., multiplicity of possible meanings and consequently of possible interpretations, with none of them achieving complete primacy or having a full explanatory power, that is the proper critical attitude towards the Fourth Gospel. Polysemy is achieved through intertextuality – the text invites its readers to connect it with other texts, corpora and traditions which variously illuminate and emphasise its features, thus opening it. This transformation in turn reflects on the author function of the Gospel, presenting the Evangelist as intellectually prolific on the one hand and, on the other, as a communicator of God’s all-encompassing truth.

Let me trace this process in detail. The interpretative exercise performed in the foregoing sections consisted of setting the Johannine reference to the fig tree in the context of the Second Temple and later discussions about Gen 2–3. This context is historically and culturally close to that from which the Fourth Gospel likely originated, and hence is particularly well suited to explain how this text operates. However, the work performed earlier in this exercise was exactly that – an exercise, meaning that other exegetic configurations could be executed. Should a different constellation of passages be assembled, the fig tree in John 1.47–51 could stand for a place of Torah study or for eschatological peace, just as it did in the minds of pre-modern interpreters. The existence of these distinct possible configurations enables the Johannine work to become intertextual and ambivalent in the sense spoken of by Julia Kristeva or, in terms preferred here, polysemous.Footnote ³⁸ She writes:

The image of a mosaic is particularly fitting here, as it requires active assembling and leaves much to the skill of the readers who act as the musivarii.Footnote ⁴⁰

The intertextuality of the Johannine fig tree is thus a function of reader response, dependent on the audience that is able and willing to perform different possible contextualisations. Consequently, the Fourth Gospel could be understood and conceptualised using the idea of an ‘open work’ as originally proposed by Umberto Eco.Footnote ⁴¹ The idea is not completely suited to describe any canonical Gospel or, indeed, any literary work from the Greco-Roman antiquity, since they generally intended to persuade their audience to accept the author’s point of view, which in the specific case of John’s work would be the acceptance of Jesus as the Son of God and Messiah. Indeed, Eco rejects pre-modern modes of interpretation as inherently rigid, even when accepting the layers of meaning, as did the scholastic theory of interpretation.Footnote ⁴² However, even if one accepts that the Fourth Gospel is ultimately a ‘closed’ work, it might still be considered open with regard to the literary or narrative path by which its audience would arrive at its religious conclusion. The encounter between Jesus and Nathanael would constitute a step on that path which could be performed in a variety of ways – as a meeting between Messiah and a Torah scholar, between the God of Israel and a true Israelite, or between the forgiving Creator and a descendant of Adam. These possibilities are generated through seeing the reference to the fig tree in different intertextual contexts, which require knowledge, exegetical skill and participation on the part of the Johannine audience. It is not left to merely appreciate the story and nod along, but rather to actively explore and contribute to its meaning, in line with Eco’s emphasis on the performer’s or reader’s dynamic participation in the formation of the work of art.Footnote ⁴³

In agreement with Eco, polysemy as it is understood here is significantly different from the rabbinic and scholastic exegetical methods, such as pardes, allegory or the so-called four senses of Scripture, as it does not assume a hierarchy and typology of meanings. Nevertheless, an interesting pattern for the kind of interpretative behaviour proposed here is found in Thomas Aquinas’ Lecture 15 on the first chapter of John’s Gospel. While commenting on v. 48, he develops three meanings of the fig tree – it was at once a realium, because Nathanael was physically under one when Philip called him, as well as symbol of sin, serving as covers for Adam and Eve and being cursed by Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, and of the Jewish Law, since both the fig tree and the Law provide shade (quoting Heb 10.1).Footnote ⁴⁴ Without organising the meanings into a layered taxonomy, Aquinas, though unaware of much of the ancient literature discussed above, sees the episode as unfolding in multiple possible contexts. The fig tree is polysemous in that it is at the same time an actual thing, a mark of sinfulness and the temporary shelter provided by the Torah. These interpretations should naturally be viewed with suspicion from a historical-critical perspective, but they function within a larger framework of reader response which resonates with the text’s author function. The fig tree from John 1, with its irreducible polyvalent symbolism reaching back to the narrative of Genesis, offers a pattern of interpretation which would allow modern readers to better reconstruct the thought world into which the Johannine text invited its readers and hearers.

The same openness could be sensed and developed with regard to other characters, objects and actions in the Johannine narrative, such as wine, water, blindness, etc. Previous sections showed that the fig tree in 1.47–51, as well as the vine later on in the text, gain additional significance in the light of Gen 3 and its reception. The Johannine text did not take sides in the debate about the species of the Tree in Eden reflected in apocryphal and rabbinic sources, but instead made his narrative embrace the two most prominent options within that discussion. Both Nathanael’s fig tree and the vine referenced later in the text derive some of their meaning from the possibility of being seen as the trees from which the first humans ate. This context renders the wine drunk at Cana and Jesus’ own identification with the vine even more polysemous.

The effect and performance of intertextuality and polysemy do not only affect the audience of the Gospel, but instead reflect back on the originator of the text. Too little is known with any certainty about the historical author of the Fourth Gospel to speak about their literary and theological intentionality. It is however meaningful to talk about how the text itself construes and represents its author or, in other words, about its author function.Footnote ⁴⁵ An exhaustive application of this concept to the Gospel of John cannot be attempted here, but even as short a passage as the Nathanael episode bears out traces of authorial presence. The number of contexts into which the fig tree could be placed projects an author conversant in Jewish literature, able to approach readers steeped in the Second Temple scribal and exegetical culture, and, most importantly, possessing esoteric knowledge. The intertextual character of John 1.47–51 makes the audience face an author who is at once literarily versatile and privy to divine revelation, thus exuding authority and credibility on which he otherwise insists (see 19.35; 20.31; 21.24).

Moving beyond polysemy as an interpretative proposal for the Johannine work, this article points to further avenues for future research. The reception of the narrative of Gen 3 within the early Jesus movement appears to go beyond Paul and have its subtle reverberations in the Fourth Gospel, which are only detectable by probing cognate exegetical debates. Furthermore, the current debates about the attitude of the author of the Fourth Gospel towards Jews and Judaism should also be informed by the exegetical discourses and circles with which he might have been in contact.Footnote ⁴⁶ After all, it is the rabbinic accounts that offer the fullest picture of the debates surrounding the Tree of Knowledge in which John and other texts participated only obliquely. Once the fig tree, under which Jesus claims to have first seen Nathanael, is read as part and parcel of those debates, it truly becomes one of the trees, to quote Jerome (Epist. 64.20), in infinitam sensuum syluam, ‘the infinite forest of meanings’.