The Old Testament narrative in question concerns the time that David and his men were fleeing from Saul's wrath and resorted to getting provisions from the priest of Nob. Saul subsequently murders the priest along with 85 other priests for helping him escape.
Emerson Green (“Counter Apologetics”) asks the above question in order to expose a contradiction within the Bible. Thus, Jesus says that Abiathar was high priest at the time (Mark 2:25-26) while the account in I Samuel 21-22 says that Ahimelech was the high priest.
Jenson, in discussing the whole concept of Jewish priesthood makes several points pertinent to this discussion: (1) “The biblical writings vary greatly in the detail with which they describe the Israelite priesthood.” (2) “The history of the high priesthood is especially obscure.” And that is especially true in the era before the return from Exile” and (3) “There is no fixed term for the high priest, who may be called the great priest (hakkohen haggadol), the head priest (kohen haro...), the anointed priest (hakkohen hammasiah) or simply the priest (Exod 31:10).”
In the OT passage of interest, Ahimelech is only called “the priest,” and there are numerous other priests at Nob with him. Thus, we cannot even state with certainty that he is “the high priest” at the time. And since we do not have a complete list of high priests at this early date, we have no additional sources to tell us who might have served in that function at the time.
As with most so-called contradictions within the Bible, there are a number of adequate options to chose from in resolving the issue, even if one can never be certain which is correct. In this case, some of the main possibilities are given below:
1. Jesus made a factual error – For a Christian, this would be the option of last resort even though no doctrinal point hangs or falls on the exact identification of that particular priest during David's day.
2. Mark, quoting from memory, made a factual error in relating the story – This is a slightly more acceptable option since it relieves Jesus from the charge of being mistaken in his facts.
Marcus appears to ascribe to this theory when he notes: “Some manuscripts of our passage, as well as the Matthean and Lukan parallels deal with the problem by simply omitting epi Abiathar archiereos.”
Metzger agrees with this assessment and points to other examples where Matthew and Luke apparently did the same thing; however in rebuttal, Hendricksen asks, “Are these Marcan phrases really so difficult that they were omitted by Matthew and Luke for this reason?”
3. A scribal error in copying the earliest pertinent OT and/or NT manuscripts is responsible for the confusion. Keep in mind that most evangelical doctrinal statements state only that the Bible is accurate in the original manuscripts, of which unfortunately we have none.
4. Mark was relying on “a midrashic [i.e. rabbinical] exposition of I Sam. 21:1-6.” (H. Anderson) The problem is that we have no information regarding such a midrash.
5. Mark purposely chose to write “Ahimelech.”
Marcus says, “Whether or not Mark was aware of this technical error, the substitution for Ahimelech certainly suits his purposes in this passage.” He goes on to explain several ways in which this statement is true. But it is somewhat hard to believe that Mark would have purposely changed Jesus' words in order to make a subtle theological point.
6. Mann, believing that Mark's Gospel was the latest of the Synoptics to be written, suggests that “Mark himself disregarded the absence of names [in the parallel accounts] and supplied one well known for his association with David.”
7. And there is another possibility cited favorably by Mann, who says: “I am now indebted to Dr. Charles A. Kennedy for the suggestion that the name Abiathar, so far from being a mistake which Matthew and Luke corrected by omission, is the result of a scribal correction of what the scribe assumed to be a simple case of dittography [i.e. accidental copying of a word or phrase twice instead of once]. In other words, the original text of Mark would have been Ab(ba)-Abiathar (“the father of Abiathar”), in much the same way that in Arabic custom at the present time a father may be known by the name of a more famous son.”
8. One option is suggested by a comment made by Metzger, who notes “Other witnesses [i.e. manuscripts], reluctant to go so far as to delete the phrase, inserted tou before archiereos...in order to permit the interpretation that the event happened in the time of (but not necessarily during the high-priesthood of) Abiathar (who was afterward) the high priest.” But perhaps these manuscripts have alternatively preserved Mark's original text instead.
9. When properly understood, the text in Mark does does not really express the fact that Abiathar was the high priest at the time of this event. This general approach to a solution by retranslating the verse takes several different forms:
a. “Wenham, for example.., noting the way in which epi + the genitive is used in 12:26, suggests that the meaning is 'in the section of scripture having to do with Abiathar.' As Lane points out, however, the phrase in question “is far away from 'have you not read,' Abiathar is not the central character in this portion of 1 Samuel, and rabbinic documents tend to designate a section by a term that occurs earlier rather than later in it (Abiathar does not appear until 1 Samuel 22).” (Marcus)
Grassmick subscribes to Wenham's understanding and adds, “Abiathar became high priest shortly after Ahimelech and proved more prominent than he, thus justifying the use of his name here.”
Short is also a supporter of Wenham's approach to translating Mark 2:26b. He says that 'in the passage about Abiathar the high priest' “seems preferable to the rendering in the text here [i.e. NIV], 'in the days of Abiathar the high priest' (feasible as that also is as a translation), in that it does not require that “Abiathar was high priest when the event occurred, which was, actually, during the high priesthood of Abiathar's father Ahimelech.”
b. Marcus also states, “Similarly questionable is Derrett's suggestion that epi Abiathar archiereos means 'in the presence of Abiathar the high priest' and anticipates Abiathar's future office.”
10. Finally, I would like to suggest another hypothetical solution which does not require stating that Mark, Jesus, the author of I Samuel, or any of the scribes copying the OT or NT documents made an error. And I believe that it is the one suggested by Hendricksen, although unfortunately he does not go on to explain himself further. He simply says that “Ahimelech functioned as a priest in the days of Abiathar the high priest.” Here is what he may be driving at, but if I am mistaken in trying to read his mind then I will take the blame myself for the following argument.
It is well known that a common OT practice was to name a child after his grandfather. In that manner, the whole patronymic line would alternate back and forth between two names until one of the men in the line happened to break the pattern. Thus, Millard notes that the name Ahimelech applies to two different priests in the OT: (1) “the father of Abiathar. The priest at Nob who gave David the shewbread and Goliath's sword, for which he was killed by Saul (1 Sa. xxi, xxii)” and (2) “Son of Abiathar, a priest under David, perhaps grandson of (1) (2 Sa. Viii.17).”
But what if this alternating pattern of names also applied earlier as well. We would then end up with the following genealogical series of priests (Roman numerals added to distinguishing them from one another):
Abiathar I – this person, only mentioned by Jesus in Mark 2:25-26, would have been the actual high priest at the time of the incident of David and the shewbread (I Samuel 21).
Ahimelich I – the priest of Nob who gave David the bread (I Samuel 21)
Abiathar II – the priest who escaped the massacre (I Samuel 22)
Ahimelech II – a later priest under David (II Samuel 8:17)
Thus, we are only left with the unanswerable question as to where Jesus got his information as to the first Abiathar in the series. But I am certainly not going to question the possibility of the One who stated “Before Abraham was, I am” having first-hand information of that fact.
10. Lastly, if “the priest,” referring to Ahimelich I, is equivalent to calling him “high priest,” then what about Abiathar I, who Jesus names “high priest”? The answer may come from another NT passage: John 18:12-24. In that encounter of Jesus with the Jewish authorities, He is first taken to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiphas, Caiphas being high priest that year (vv. 12-14). However, in vv. 19-23, it is Annas who is called high priest instead. How can there be two high priests at the same time? The answer given by almost all commentators is that Annas used to be the high priest before Caiphas took over; however Annas still had enough authority among the people that he continued to hold that honorary title. Thus, we have a clear precedent for considering that both Abiathar I and Ahimelich I were both allowed to be called the “high priest” at the same time.
Conclusion
After Bruce mentions some of the above options, he concludes: '”Whatever the case, Mark did not realize that there was a problem...While many ancient historians would not have been bothered by such an innocuous slip, it did seem to bother Matthew and Luke [assuming that they wrote after Mark did], so we cannot be sure that it would not have bothered Mark. Thus we can arbitrarily select one of the speculative solutions mentioned, perhaps choosing the one which pleases us the best, or we can say, 'We honestly don't know what the answer is to this problem, nor are we likely to ever know.' In that case, this verse makes plain that our knowledge is always partial so that our trust remains in God rather than in what we know.”
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