Four Passovers
“Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.” (John 5:1, NIV)
“The identity of this feast is significant for the attempt to ascertain the number of Passovers included in Jesus’ ministry, and thus the number of years his ministry lasted. John explicitly mentions at least three different Passovers: the first in 2:13, 23, the second in 6:4 and the third several times (eg in 11:55, 12:1). If three Passovers are accepted, the length of Jesus’ ministry was between two and three years. However, if the feast of 5:1 was a fourth Passover or assumes that a fourth Passover had come and gone, Jesus’ministry would have lasted between three and four years” – footnote, NIV Study Bible, 1985 Zondervan, p. 1603.
The Sinaitic MS read η εορτη [the feast], while the Vatican 1209 and other Mss. omit the definite article h and render the text “a feast.” The Concordant Greek Text confirms the Sinaitic with this note: “s faint + H.” This means in the Sinaitic, there appears a faint Uncial (upper case Greek) character H, which corresponds to the definite article h. Were the article genuine, we would be compelled to regard the chief festival, that is the Passover, as the one meant. If it is not genuine, the Passover may be meant, but so also may be some other feast. We notice two other references where the definite article is omitted and yet where the feast of Passover is obviously meant. These are Matthew 27:15 and Mark 15:6. It is our opinion that the Passover feast is meant in either case here in John and that this reference brings the total Passovers mentioned by John to four. That these occurred in the springs of AD 30, 31, 32 and 33 would correspond with the first half of the symbolic 70th week of Daniel 9:27. This being the second Passover observed since Jesus’ Baptism would mark the four references in John as 2:13, 5:1, 6:4, 12:1. This view also allows for two times that Jesus cleansed the temple: one at the beginning and the other at the end of his ministry. The first is noted in John 2:14 and the second time, just prior to the last passover, is noted in Matthew 21:12 and Mark 11:15. For further analysis of John 5:1 see A Harmony of the Gospels by A. T. Robertson, pages 42, 267.
– Jerry Leslie