Luke: “Their net brake” ([v, 6]).
John: “For all there were so many, yet was not the net broken” ([xxi, 11]).
In Luke and John we have two different versions of a Pythagorian legend. After comparing and noting the agreements and variations of the three versions of the legend, Strauss says:
“If there be a mind that, not perceiving in the narratives we have compared the finger-marks of tradition, and hence the legendary character of these evangelical anecdotes, still leans to the historical interpretation, whether natural or supernatural; that mind must be alike ignorant of the true character both of legend and of history, of the natural and the supernatural” (Leben Jesu, p. 339).
128
How long did the Jews say it took to build the temple?
“Forty and six years was this temple in building” ([John ii, 20]).
One year and six months was this temple in building.
Josephus (B. xv, ch. xi) gives a full account of the building of the temple. Of its commencement, he says: “And now Herod, in the eighteenth year of his reign, and after the acts already mentioned, undertook a very great work—that is, to build of himself the temple of God” (sec. 1). Concerning its completion, he says: “But the temple itself was built by the priests in a year and six months—upon which all the people were full of joy; and presently they returned thanks, in the first place, to God; and in the next place, for the alacrity the king had shown. They feasted and celebrated this rebuilding of the temple” (sec. 6).