The Temple Cleansings

John places it at the first Passover of the public work. He finds sellers of oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. He drives them out. He says, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father's house into a marketplace!" The Jews ask for a sign. He says, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." John says he was speaking of the temple of his body (John 2:13-21).

Mark places a clearing on the morning after the entry, late in the story (Mark 11:15-17). Matthew tells it with the entry (Matthew 21:12-13). Luke tells it with the arrival (Luke 19:45-46). The charge in the synoptics is a house of prayer turned into a den of robbers. John's charge is a marketplace. Close, not a carbon copy.

Two readings are both alive.

One clearing, told twice. John moved it forward because the saying about the temple mattered early, or the synoptics moved it to the week where the conflict breaks. Ancient life-stories do sometimes arrange by theme. That reading has to say why the details are not the same, and why John is so particular about "the first" Passover.

Two clearings. He did this at the start and again at the end. The courts had filled back up in between. Nothing in the text says "only once." A prophet can repeat a sign. This reading has to live with the fact that the synoptics never mention the early one, and John never mentions the late one.

This lesson does not pick. The road still runs through Jerusalem more than once in John, whether or not the tables went over both times. The last week still has its own storm in the synoptics, whether or not John already told an earlier one.