Most scholars believe that Mark was the first gospel and was used as a source by the authors of Matthew and Luke.[5] In the Jewish scriptures the people of Israel are sometimes represented as figs on a fig tree (Hosea 9:10, Jeremiah 24), or a fig tree that bears no fruit (Jeremiah 8:13), and in Micah 4:4 the age of the messiah is pictured as one in which each man would sit under his fig tree without fear; the cursing of the fig tree in Mark and Matthew and the parallel story in Luke are thus symbolically directed against the Jews, who have not accepted Jesus as king.[3][4] At first sight the destruction of the fig tree does not seem to fit Jesus' behaviour elsewhere, but the miracle stories are directed against property rather than people, and form a "prophetic act of judgement".[6] In Why I Am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell used the tale to dispute the greatness of Jesus.[7]