Does John Contradict Matthew, Mark and Luke?

Elaine Pagels in "Beyond Belief" believes the Gospel of John is very different and contradictory to the other Gospels in significant ways. Matthew, Mark, and Luke makes the act of Jesus disrupting the merchants doing business in the Temple as Jesus' last public act. John makes it his first act. The three other Gospels say that the attack on the money changers is what finally drove the chief priest to arrest Jesus. With John placing this act in the beginning of his version, there was no immediate reprecussions for Jesus' actions. John accounts for Jesus' arrest by inserting a scene that doesn't occur in any of the other gospels: Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead which was so alarming to the Jewish authorities that they became determined to kill Jesus. According to Ms. Pagels, even Origen, a father of the early Christian church, admits that John doesn't always tell the truth literally, but he always tells the truth spiritually.