Jesus went to Jerusalem shortly before the Passover. In the temple courts, he finds people selling animals for sacrifice, cattle, sheep, and doves. Other people are sitting at tables exchanging money.
Jesus makes a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple area. He overturns the tables of the money changers and scatters their tables. To those selling doves, he shouts "how dare you turn my Father's house into a market".
This is the only anecdote of physical violence by Jesus in the Gospels. Even then, the violence might not even be directed against people, but rather the animals, tables, and coins. Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers and scattered their coins in the process. Jesus does make a whip, but the whip seems to be used to drive out the sheep and cattle. There is no indication that Jesus used the whip against people. He does not use any violence against the dove sellers, but rather shouts at them.
There probably was nothing wrong with the custom of selling animals near the sacrificial area. It is actually a necessary service if people had to come from a long way off to sacrifice at Passover. However, it seems the problem is that it was within the temple itself.
The temple court was known at the Court of the Gentiles. This was the only area of the temple that Gentiles were allowed to enter and worship God. As demonstrated by the story, the Jews had a strong zeal for the worship of God, but to the exclusion of Gentiles. Rather, the area for Gentiles had become a common marketplace, full of animals and money changers. If one was a Gentile and wanted to worship God, one would have to compete against the noise and traffic within the court that has become a barn. Preventing access to God for the Gentiles could be what triggered Jesus' anger at this time.
The Jews are mad at Jesus and ask him what sign can he do to show his authority he can do this. His response is that this temple is destroyed, it will be raised up in three days. The Jews scoff at this because it took 46 years to rebuild the second temple. The text indicate that Jesus' disciples did not initially understand the statement either. However, after the resurrection, they remembered the statement and understood the "temple" to be the physical body of Christ.
Side tangent - from Nehemiah we learned that the reconstruction of the city walls took less than two months. Here, we find out that the reconstruction of the temple took 46 years.
The question by the Jews is interesting because it shows their perspective. They needed a miraculous sign to prove his authority, or at least the question indicates that they need one. At this point, they probably would have heard that John the Baptist has baptized "someone greater", and they may have even heard that it was Jesus. However, Jesus does not fit the mold of what a prophet greater than John would do. Jesus does not have a remote wilderness ministry (unlike John) but rather goes directly to Jerusalem and challenges their customs.
Jesus then actually gives them what they wanted. In verse 23, Jesus performs many miraculous signs during Passover and many people believe in his name. However, Jesus does not entrust himself to any of these new converts because he knew their consciences even without verbally hearing about their reputation. The Bible does not give us any further details about them as a group.
We will encounter someone who was probably one of these new converts in John 3 - Nicodemus.
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