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发帖数: 6300 | 1 Is There a Mistake in Mark 2:26?
Post Author: Bill Pratt
In Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus, he relays a life-changing event
that occurred during his university days at Princeton. He wrote a paper on
an alleged historical error made in Mark 2:26, where Jesus refers to David
and his companions entering the house of God and eating the consecrated
bread. Here is the verse in question:
“In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and
ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he
also gave some to his companions.”
The apparent difficulty with this verse is that 1 Samuel 21, which
originally recorded the event, states that Abiathar’s father, Ahimelech,
was the high priest when David ate the bread, not Abiathar.
According to Ehrman, in his research paper, he developed a “long and
complicated argument” to explain away the apparent mistake. But when he
received his graded paper his professor had written, “Maybe Mark just made
a mistake.” When Ehrman read the professor’s note, “the floodgates
opened.” If there could be a mistake here, then there could be mistakes in
other parts of the Bible. Ehrman’s doubts about the truth of Christianity
snowballed and today he is an agnostic, no longer able to believe what the
Bible says.
When I read this account of Ehrman’s life, I could only shake my head in
disbelief. How could this one little issue be such a strong catalyst toward
doubting the entire Bible? Is there no answer to the Mark 2:26 problem?
Had nobody ever dealt with this problem before?
I attempted to do a little research and quickly found satisfactory answers
to the alleged historical difficulty in Mark 2:26.
According to Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, here is one way of dealing with
this problem:
- See more at: http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2009/09/27/is-there-a-mistake-in-mark-226/#sthash.sMtKbius.dpuf
First Samuel is correct in stating that the high priest was Ahimelech. On
the other hand neither was Jesus wrong. When we take a closer look at Christ
’s words we notice that He used the phrase “in the days of Abiathar” (v.
26) which does not necessarily imply that Abiathar was high priest at the
time David ate the bread. After David met Ahimelech and ate the bread, King
Saul had Ahimelech killed (1 Sam. 22:17–19). Abiathar escaped and went to
David (v. 20) and later took the place of the high priest. So even though
Abiathar was made high priest after David ate the bread, it is still correct
to speak in this manner. After all, Abiathar was alive when David did this,
and soon following he became the high priest after his father’s death.
Thus, it was during the time of Abiathar, but not during his tenure in
office.
Abiathar was a high priest during David’s reign as king, and he is
mentioned some 29 times in the Old Testament in relation to his priestly
role. Those familiar with the Hebrew Bible in the 1st century (when The
Gospel of Mark was written) would easily connect Abiathar to David, so Mark
2:26 is merely reminding readers of the time frame of David’s eating the
consecrated bread.
The words “the high priest,” coming after “Abiathar”
are just his title, much like we might say, “When President Obama attended
college, he made many friends.” Obama was not president while he was in
college, but whenever we mention Obama, we refer to him as President Obama.
This argument is easy to grasp and hardly requires an entire research paper,
so one wonders why Ehrman didn’t know about this approach to the challenge
of Mark 2:26. It seems to me that there were clearly other, more important
factors in Ehrman’s rejection of Christianity. - See more at: http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2009/09/27/is-there-a-mistake-in-mark-226/#sthash.sMtKbius.dpuf
My challenge to Christians who are intimidated by claims of errors in the
Bible is to go do some research for yourself. There are answers to these
challenges. Remember, virtually all the Bible difficulties that critics
raise have been known for 2,000 years. None of them are new. Instead of
throwing your faith away, do some digging. I only wish Ehrman had. - See
more at: http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2009/09/27/is-there-a-mistake-in-mark-226/#sthash.sMtKbius.dpuf
http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2009/09/27/is-there-a-mis |
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