Surprised at the flub by First Things. Nothing in John’s gospel suggests it is chronological, so its quite possible his cleansing of the Temple (chapter 2) is the same cleansing that other gospels place much later (e.g., Mark 11).
How about, "On the third day, there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee ..."?
"They also didn't bother to make the case that knowing the date is important."
I think it's an interesting hypothesis but you're right about it not being important. In fact, I've never given it much thought which may be why I thought it was interesting.
I was actually thinking about but not yet looking up the cleansing of the Temple because it being in the article didn't seem to fit for some reason. I admit I didn't jump to there being some variation in timing between the Gospel accounts, though.
I recall about thirty years ago (maybe more) reading that a document referring to multiple crucifixions during a given time frame had been found and that it was going to lead to a "definitive" date for the Crucifixion of Christ. I never saw anything else as a followup.
Given that this was way back in ARPANET days, lots of things would show up, someone would decide the thread wasn't suitable for the then all administered forums, and it would all vanish. I've sometimes wondered if there ever was such a document but have never found anything along those lines. Maybe for a lack of digging, maybe because I didn't spend much time on ARPANET that wasn't task specific, maybe because it was just more noise.
I think about whether there was such a document from time to time, usually when something else triggers an image of the warehouse they show the Ark being put into at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
Well, I feel better now that I've gotten my date related concerns out of the way for the next decade or so.
Good points, Regards