withallyourmind.net

It’s been a busy, busy week! I’ve been a little slow in bogging for the past few days, but today I’m starting a brief series discussing a “contradiction” found in Scripture. There are many supposed “contradictions” contained in scripture that critics are quick to point out as evidence the Bible is error-filled and untrustworthy.

Some time earlier this year, I reviewed Bart Ehrman’s book, Misquoting Jesus(type “misleading readers” in the search option on this page and you will find all 9 posts in the series). Bart Ehrman begins the book by recounting his life story in order that the reader might know how it was that he came to the conclusions to which he now holds. It was at Princeton Theological Seminary that Ehrman’s already wavering commitment to the Bible as the inerrant word of God came under serious assault. Ehrman describes the turning point in this assault as occurring in his second semester at Princeton during a course on the exegesis of the Gospel of Mark. His professor, Cullen Story, assigned a term paper on a difficult passage in Mark of the student’s own choosing. Ehrman chose Mark 2:23-28:

One Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?” And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” (ESV)

The problem with this passage is that it conflicts with the account of the same story given in 1 Samuel 21:1-6:

Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David trembling and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?” And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread— if the young men have kept themselves from women.” And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

It appears that Mark made a mistake. Who was the high priest in the story? Was it Abiathar? Or was it Abiathar’s father, Ahimelech? Mark 2:23-28 is one of those passages which is often presented as proof that the Bible is full of mistakes and contradictions, therefore it cannot be considered the inerrant and infallible word of God. I’ll take a closer look at this claim in my next few posts.