Jesus and the Money Changers

The narrative of Jesus and the Money Changers occurs in both the Synoptic Gospels and in the Gospel of John, although it occurs close to the end of the Synoptic Gospels at:

Mark 11:15–19, 11:27–33,
Matthew 21:12–17, 21:23–27, and
Luke 19:45–48, 20:1–8

but close to the start in John (at John 2:12–25) and as a result some biblical scholars think there may have been two incidents. In the episode, Jesus is stated to have visited the Temple in Jerusalem, Herod's Temple, at which the courtyard is described as being filled with livestock and the tables of the money changers, who changed the standard Greek and Roman money for Jewish and Tyrian money, which were the only coinage that could be used in Temple ceremonies.

According to the Gospels, Jesus took offense to this, and so, creating a whip from some cords, drives out the livestock, scatters the coins of the money changers, and turns over their tables, and those of the people selling doves.

In the Gospel of John this is the first of the three times that Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the Passover, and John says that during the Passover Feast there were (unspecified) miraculous signs performed by Jesus, which caused people to believe in him, but that he would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. Some scholars have argued that John may have included this latter statement, about knowing all men, in order to portray Jesus as possessing a knowledge of people's hearts and minds (Brown et al. 955), and hence have attributes that would be expected of God.

This event satisfies the criterion of multiple attestation, and scholars of the historical Jesus generally credit this event as genuine and associate it with Jesus' arrest and crucifixion.

More...