He made a whip of cords, and threw all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers’ money and overthrew their tables.
World English Bible
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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He made a whip of cords, and threw all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers’ money and overthrew their tables.
World English Bible
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
John 2 places Jesus' violent cleansing of the temple at the very beginning of his public ministry, right after the Cana wedding miracle and years before his arrest. The Synoptics place it at the very end of his ministry: Luke 19 has him doing it the same day as the triumphal entry, Matthew 21 and Mark 11 have him doing it the day after.
Critical scholarship: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction.
Chronology
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Matthew 5:39 has Jesus teaching non-resistance: do not resist evil, turn the other cheek. Matthew 26:52 has him telling Peter to put away his sword because those who take the sword perish by it.
Critical scholarship: Leans toward a genuine contradiction.
Historical detail
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"John 2:15 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/john/2/15?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).