The Length of His Ministry

A ministry of a few months cannot survive John's Passovers. He is in Jerusalem for a Passover near the start (John 2:13). He is by the sea when the Passover is near, at the feeding (John 6:4). He goes up to the last Passover (John 12:1, John 13:1). Three feasts of that name, in that order, are already more than two years.

John 5:1 adds "a feast of the Jews" and does not say which. If it is another Passover, there is a year in between that John does not narrate as a Passover scene. If it is Booths, or Dedication, or something else, the three named Passovers still stand. Booths and Dedication are already told later, in John 7 and John 10, so this unnamed feast is not those, unless John tells a feast twice. Readers usually leave it unnamed rather than force it.

Luke's "about thirty" at the start (Luke 3:23) and a crucifixion in 30 or in 33 are fitted to this length in AD 30 or AD 33. The road itself, from the Jordan to Ephraim, does not need the year in order to be walked. It needs you not to collapse it into one summer.