On Monday of Jesus’s passion week, he cleansed the Jerusalem temple. The day before (Sunday), he had ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey. When he drew near to the city, he wept over it (Luke 19:41).
Going to the Jerusalem temple on Monday, he knew what he was going to do. His action was not spontaneous or rash. Here’s what the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and Luke say he did:
Matthew 21:12-13
Jesus entered the temple.
He drove out the buyers and sellers.
He overturned the tables of money-changers.
He overturned the seats of the pigeon-sellers.
He quoted Isaiah 56:7, saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
Mark 11:15-17
Jesus entered the temple.
He drove out the buyers and sellers.
He overturned the tables of money-changers.
He overturned the seats of pigeon-sellers.
He quoted Isaiah 56:7, saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
Luke 19:45-46
Jesus entered the temple.
He drove out the sellers.
He quoted Isaiah 56:7, saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”
The timing of these three accounts is identical: Jesus cleansed the Jerusalem temple on Monday of his passion week, which means it was the Monday before his death on the cross.
When readers go to John’s Gospel, they will read about Sunday’s triumphal entry in John 12:12-19. Since the triumphal entry in Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19 is followed by a temple cleansing, we’re expecting to see that in John 12 as well.
But there isn’t a temple cleansing in John 12 or in any chapter after it. John’s Gospel doesn’t record a temple cleansing in the chapters of Jesus’s passion week (John 12—19). There is, however, a cleansing of the temple earlier in John’s Gospel. What should we think about that? Let’s first see what it includes.
John 2:13-17
Jesus entered the temple.
He made a whip of cords.
He drove out the buyers and sellers.
He overturned the tables of money-changers.
He sent away the pigeon-sellers.
His disciples remembered the words of Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
So how many temple cleansings were there in Jesus’s ministry? One or two? Was John 2 the same temple cleansing as the one in Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19? Or was John 2 a temple cleansing that occurred earlier in Jesus’s ministry, which would mean that the episode in Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19 would be a separate and second cleansing?
If scholars believe that John 2:13-17 reports the same event as Matthew, Mark, and Luke, then the argument is that John has moved the episode earlier for theological (rather than chronological reasons). Well, maybe. But that reasoning doesn’t persuade me.
What if John 2:13-17 was a temple cleansing that occurred earlier in Jesus’s ministry and therefore what Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19 report is a separate and second cleansing? Here are lines of argument to consider.
First, John 2:13-17 reports Jesus making a whip of cords. Neither Matthew nor Mark nor Luke reports that.
Second, John 2:13-17 lacks Jesus’s quote of Isaiah 56:7, which is the Scripture he quotes in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s accounts.
Third, when Scripture is quoted in John 2:13-17, it’s from Psalm 69:9 and yet Jesus doesn’t speak it in the temple; rather, the text says the disciples recall that verse in light of what Jesus did (John 2:17).
Fourth, John 2:13-17 occurs in a literary unit (2:1—4:54) that opens and ends with Cana episodes (2:1-11; 4:46-54), and the opening Cana miracle (2:1-11) is called “the first of his signs” (2:11) and thus occurs near the beginning of Jesus’s earthly ministry. Since 2:13-17 occurs in a bounded literary unit (2:1—4:54), the temple cleansing should be understood as belonging to the same time period as the Cana episodes—early in Jesus’s ministry and not in his passion week.
When we look at the placement of John 2:13-17 in Jesus’s ministry, and when we look at the differences between that cleansing and the one reported in Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19, we are on justified grounds to conclude that there are two temple cleansings during Jesus’s earthly ministry. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are reporting the same thing. But John isn’t.
We cannot know for sure why Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s Gospels don’t report that first temple cleansing, but we can speculate why John’s Gospel did. In the Fourth Gospel, John includes multiple episodes that fill in things the other three Gospels don’t contain. After all, John reports the episodes of water turning to wine, the Samaritan woman at the well, the resurrection of Lazarus, etc. When we read John 2:13-17, we’re reading something that John wants his readers to know, because they won’t find it in the other three Gospels.
An interpreter might ask, “If John reported an earlier temple cleansing, why didn’t he report the later one as well?” Good question. My reasoning boils down to this: John doesn’t report the same kind of event twice. The strategy of the other three Gospels is different. In them we read about multiple blind men receiving sight, multiple lepers cleansed, multiple sick people healed, multiple dead people raised, and multiple miraculous feedings.
Once John reports a certain kind of event, he doesn’t do it again later. When John reports the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1-14), he doesn’t report the feeding of the four thousand sometime after that. When he reports that a blind man was healed (John 9), that’s the only blind-man-healing in the Fourth Gospel. When Jesus raises Lazarus from death (John 11), that’s the only resurrection Jesus performs in the Fourth Gospel.
John’s Gospel doesn’t report the same kind of event twice. The reason this matters is that if John fills in gaps by telling us about a temple cleansing that occurred earlier in Jesus’s ministry (John 2:13-17), John isn’t going to report that same kind of event later.
So even though there was a temple cleansing on Monday of Jesus’s passion week, you won’t read about it in the Fourth Gospel’s passion week account. But you will read about it in Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 19.