"A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."
Matthew 7:18
This statement, as it appears in English, is puzzling to say the least.
Not only is this a classical example of Yeshua using hyperbole, but it just goes so far into the realm of hyperbole as to contradict nature and thus the comparison becomes literally untrue.
1a.
I will first demonstrate why the statement spoken in Matthew 7:18 cannot be accepted as literal truth as it appears to us in English. I will then correlate this to a larger scriptural phenomenon.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit
A good tree CAN bear bad fruit. It happens VERY frequently.
As a natural truth, good trees bear bad fruit every single year. As a statement on people, it also cannot be literally true, as good trees (saints) can bear bad fruit (sins).
In fact, another verse of scripture says "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God" (Romans 3:10).
Jewish tradition lists about four people who were sinless, but there is a quesion of whether that is even meant literally. Four is in any case not a very high number, so it would stand to reason these four are not the ones being singled out as "good trees".
a bad tree cannot bear good fruit
This part of the statement is or at least appears to be closer to natural truth than the foregoing part of the statement.
However, the implication that a sinner is not capable of even one good deed is simply wrong. A statement like "even a broken clock is right twice a day" would be far more realistic and meaningful.
1b.
Having established that Matthew 7:18 cannot be taken literally without contradicting other parts of the Bible and the verifiable natural truths, the question becomes:
What is Yeshua really doing?
What is he teaching us, through this extreme statement?
Is he being careless?
I think it will be instructive to compare another puzzle. By comparing the already mentioned problem with another problem, we will actually solve both. In other words, we will procede to see how two wrongs will make a right.
The new problem we will consider is the apparent contradiction between the following statements:
-- "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters" (Matthew 12:30)
-- "Whoever is not against us is for us" (Luke 9:50; Mark 9:40).
So, if someone is not "for" Yeshua, are they against him?
According to Matthew, they are against him. According to Luke and Mark that is not enough; you have to be consciously against him in order to be against him.
2a.
The solution is pretty simple. Yeshua reserved the right to "contradict" himself, particularly through the use of extreme hyperbole. And that is how we speak.
That is how we have always spoken.
When scripture relays the antagonistic proverb "nothing good comes out of Nazareth", scripture does NOT reactionally dissect the statement or challenge it as being hyperbole and therefore by definition inaccurate. Rather, scripture completely accepts hyperbole as a valid tool.
Without hyperbole and the right to be inaccurate, there really is no communication.
Try speaking 100% accurately for one day, or even just one hour. I bet you can't do it.
Speaking of the sun, I already failed myself, since I used a non-literal phrase. I mean, I didn't literally place a bet. Nor did I speak of the sun.
2b.
Yeshua was much older than Abraham. He had seen the world turn, he knew how people spoke. His mastery of language was such that he created some of the most quotable phrases and proverbs in history. But he also challenged us.
I will go so far as to say I believe Yeshua purposefully issued challenges in the form of making statements that, if taken literally, would be contradictions. He is challenging us to figure it out, to harmonize it. By the same token, we have four gospels with some apparent contradictions. This is not a mistake. This is not a mistake on God's part, nor a human mistake.
God does this all the time. He intentionally confounds people:
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.
Proverbs 25:2
Explaining his own rhetoric by referencing Isa. 6:9, Yeshua says:
And the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled in them, which says, 'Hearing you will hear, and you will not understand, and seeing you will see and you will not know.
Matthew 13:14
Those who find a contradiction and (I) consider the Bible's validity broken or (II) deny that it even is a contradiction, and thus preventing the contradiction from receiving its intended solution, are both taking the wrong route. These are by extension the people Yeshua is referring to here.
For example, when scripture tells us that David slew Goliath and later tells us that Goliath was slain by Elhanan (2 Samuel 21:19), there are three possible responses.
I) Take it as proof that scripture is man-made and/or corrupted.
II) Deny the contradiction. This basically means coming up with a false solution, one that denies us the lesson that God is trying to teach us. Most Bible translations have done this relative to 2 Samuel 21:19, by inserting the word "brother" into the text, and by dividing another word into two words, thus changing the text into a story about a guy who kills Goliath's brother.
III) Accepting the contradiction as intentional, as a challenge, and hence not a "true" contradiction; and therefore resolving or trying to resolve it using Biblical logic. The actual explanation is, very simply, that Elhanan is just another name for David. No need to insert the word "brother" into the text.
[In fact, this particular example is a sad one. The answer is so plain, yet the Bible translators all miss it. Elhanan is even specifically described as the son of a Bethlehemite. Well guess what? Jesse, father of David, is specifically called a Bethelehemite multiple times in scripture, eg. 1 Samuel 16:1.]
2c.
In conclusion, both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament contain rhetoric that is non-literal (without being symbolic). Scriptures can often be hyperbolic, which is a fundamental part of human communication, but furthermore, the scriptures are intentionally challenging.
Yeshua goes out of his way to create these challenges, and those who recorded his words apparently picked up on this. The writers of the gospels could have harmonized things and removed contradictions (whether it be internal contradictions or contradiction between gospels) but apparently they realized what God was doing...
...UNLIKE our translators, which prefer to add to the text rather than interpret what God has presented to us; and UNLIKE the skeptics, which dismiss every divine challenge as a mistake on God's part.
Matthew 7:18
This statement, as it appears in English, is puzzling to say the least.
Not only is this a classical example of Yeshua using hyperbole, but it just goes so far into the realm of hyperbole as to contradict nature and thus the comparison becomes literally untrue.
1a.
I will first demonstrate why the statement spoken in Matthew 7:18 cannot be accepted as literal truth as it appears to us in English. I will then correlate this to a larger scriptural phenomenon.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit
A good tree CAN bear bad fruit. It happens VERY frequently.
As a natural truth, good trees bear bad fruit every single year. As a statement on people, it also cannot be literally true, as good trees (saints) can bear bad fruit (sins).
In fact, another verse of scripture says "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God" (Romans 3:10).
Jewish tradition lists about four people who were sinless, but there is a quesion of whether that is even meant literally. Four is in any case not a very high number, so it would stand to reason these four are not the ones being singled out as "good trees".
a bad tree cannot bear good fruit
This part of the statement is or at least appears to be closer to natural truth than the foregoing part of the statement.
However, the implication that a sinner is not capable of even one good deed is simply wrong. A statement like "even a broken clock is right twice a day" would be far more realistic and meaningful.
1b.
Having established that Matthew 7:18 cannot be taken literally without contradicting other parts of the Bible and the verifiable natural truths, the question becomes:
What is Yeshua really doing?
What is he teaching us, through this extreme statement?
Is he being careless?
I think it will be instructive to compare another puzzle. By comparing the already mentioned problem with another problem, we will actually solve both. In other words, we will procede to see how two wrongs will make a right.
The new problem we will consider is the apparent contradiction between the following statements:
-- "Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters" (Matthew 12:30)
-- "Whoever is not against us is for us" (Luke 9:50; Mark 9:40).
So, if someone is not "for" Yeshua, are they against him?
According to Matthew, they are against him. According to Luke and Mark that is not enough; you have to be consciously against him in order to be against him.
2a.
The solution is pretty simple. Yeshua reserved the right to "contradict" himself, particularly through the use of extreme hyperbole. And that is how we speak.
That is how we have always spoken.
When scripture relays the antagonistic proverb "nothing good comes out of Nazareth", scripture does NOT reactionally dissect the statement or challenge it as being hyperbole and therefore by definition inaccurate. Rather, scripture completely accepts hyperbole as a valid tool.
Without hyperbole and the right to be inaccurate, there really is no communication.
Try speaking 100% accurately for one day, or even just one hour. I bet you can't do it.
Speaking of the sun, I already failed myself, since I used a non-literal phrase. I mean, I didn't literally place a bet. Nor did I speak of the sun.
2b.
Yeshua was much older than Abraham. He had seen the world turn, he knew how people spoke. His mastery of language was such that he created some of the most quotable phrases and proverbs in history. But he also challenged us.
I will go so far as to say I believe Yeshua purposefully issued challenges in the form of making statements that, if taken literally, would be contradictions. He is challenging us to figure it out, to harmonize it. By the same token, we have four gospels with some apparent contradictions. This is not a mistake. This is not a mistake on God's part, nor a human mistake.
God does this all the time. He intentionally confounds people:
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.
Proverbs 25:2
Explaining his own rhetoric by referencing Isa. 6:9, Yeshua says:
And the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled in them, which says, 'Hearing you will hear, and you will not understand, and seeing you will see and you will not know.
Matthew 13:14
Those who find a contradiction and (I) consider the Bible's validity broken or (II) deny that it even is a contradiction, and thus preventing the contradiction from receiving its intended solution, are both taking the wrong route. These are by extension the people Yeshua is referring to here.
For example, when scripture tells us that David slew Goliath and later tells us that Goliath was slain by Elhanan (2 Samuel 21:19), there are three possible responses.
I) Take it as proof that scripture is man-made and/or corrupted.
II) Deny the contradiction. This basically means coming up with a false solution, one that denies us the lesson that God is trying to teach us. Most Bible translations have done this relative to 2 Samuel 21:19, by inserting the word "brother" into the text, and by dividing another word into two words, thus changing the text into a story about a guy who kills Goliath's brother.
III) Accepting the contradiction as intentional, as a challenge, and hence not a "true" contradiction; and therefore resolving or trying to resolve it using Biblical logic. The actual explanation is, very simply, that Elhanan is just another name for David. No need to insert the word "brother" into the text.
[In fact, this particular example is a sad one. The answer is so plain, yet the Bible translators all miss it. Elhanan is even specifically described as the son of a Bethlehemite. Well guess what? Jesse, father of David, is specifically called a Bethelehemite multiple times in scripture, eg. 1 Samuel 16:1.]
2c.
In conclusion, both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament contain rhetoric that is non-literal (without being symbolic). Scriptures can often be hyperbolic, which is a fundamental part of human communication, but furthermore, the scriptures are intentionally challenging.
Yeshua goes out of his way to create these challenges, and those who recorded his words apparently picked up on this. The writers of the gospels could have harmonized things and removed contradictions (whether it be internal contradictions or contradiction between gospels) but apparently they realized what God was doing...
...UNLIKE our translators, which prefer to add to the text rather than interpret what God has presented to us; and UNLIKE the skeptics, which dismiss every divine challenge as a mistake on God's part.
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Some things just can't possibly be a 'coincidence'! 
