icans (ii. 16). In like manner the cure of the withered hand (iii.
1-6) may have become artificially grouped with the incident of the
cornfields. It is possible, also, that both Sabbath controversies owe
their early place in the gospel to traditional association with the early
conflicts (ii. 1-17). If so, the plucking of the grain actually occurred
some weeks after the feeding of the five thousand, and probably after the
controversy about tradition (vii. 1-23), with which, according to Mark,
Jesus' activity in Galilee practically closed. It is not clear, however,
what principle of association drew forward to the early group the Sabbath
conflict, and left in its place the controversy about tradition. It is
thus possible that the incident of the cornfields belongs also to the
early nucleus of the group; and in this case the longer ministry,
including four Passovers, must be accepted. The decision of the question
is not of vital importance, but it affects the determination of the
sequence of events in Jesus' life. Whatever the explanation of the remark
of Papias, the more the gospels are studied the more does Mark's order of
events commend itself in general as representing the probable fact. Many
students have inferred the three year ministry from the Gospel of John
alone, identifying the unnamed feast in John v. 1 with a Passover. But
John's allusion to that feast is so indefinite that the length of Jesus'
ministry must be determined quite independently of it.

48. So long a ministry as three years presents some difficulties, for all
that is told us in the four gospels would cover but a small fraction of
this time. John's statement (xx. 30) that he omitted many things from
Jesus' life in making his book is evidently true of all the evangelists,
and long gaps, such as are evident in the fourth gospel, must be assumed
in the other three. Recalling the character of the gospels as pictures of
Jesus rather than narratives of his life, we may easily acknowledge the
incompleteness of our record of the three years of ministry, and wonder
the more at the vividness of impression produced with such economy of
material. This meagreness of material is not decisive for the shorter
rather than the longer ministry, for it is evident that to effect such a
change in conviction and feeling as Jesus wrought in the minds of the
ardent Galileans who were his disciples, required time. Three years are
better suited to effect this change than two.