Note 15 — Chapter XIV · ORTHODOXY AND THE “ORAL” HYPOTHESIS

John makes Jesus go four times to Jerusalem; while in the synoptics we note “the extraordinary fact that they do not bring Christ to Jerusalem until He entered it to be crucified.”15 John puts the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of the Ministry, and the synoptics place it at the close. Orthodox exegesis then assumes two cleansings, but “such a repetition is, to say the least, highly improbable,” for Mr. Wright. “What end would such a repetition serve? And if repeated, why should not S. Mark or S. John have told us so?”16 Why, indeed! So Mr. Wright suggests that the synoptics may have telescoped several years into one. “Events in real life move much more slowly.”17 They certainly do!