聖經問題 -- Abiathar Error

[Ming Yuen Yee]

Grateful to know if any of you have come across the so-called “Abiathar Error”? In Mark 2:26, Jesus says, “How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest”, where Jesus is describing what happened when David was hungry while on the run from King Saul. But most scholars say that Abiathar was not high priest when these events took place but rather his father, Ahimelech.

Do you know of any good explanation (other than that either Jesus or Mark is mistaken) of this so-called “error”? Thanks. :D

[但以理．古]

I can think of at least the following possible explanations, although I did not study how the scholars defended this specific "error":

1. Abiathar is most remembered as high priest, although he was not so by then.
2. Abiathar is named "Abiathar the high priest" in the Jewish oral tradition.
3. Abiathar was already announced to be the high-priest-to-be by the time.
4. Abiathar is treated the same ranking as his father and shares his reputation.
5. Ahimelech has another name: Abiathar.
6. Abiathar is in practise a high priest, though the title is not announced yet.
7. .....
8. ..

[銀狐]

我都曾聽過這個問題，我當時的老師解釋比較「前衛」，他認為耶穌一時講錯都可以接受，畢竟這個小誤差對經文的主題影響不大。或旦會否馬可搞錯?但這又影響聖經權威。

[胖嘟嘟]

Grateful to know if any of you have come across the so-called “Abiathar Error”? In Mark 2:26, Jesus says, “How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest”, where Jesus is describing what happened when David was hungry while on the run from King Saul. But most scholars say that Abiathar was not high priest when these events took place but rather his father, Ahimelech.

Do you know of any good explanation (other than that either Jesus or Mark is mistaken) of this so-called “error”? Thanks. :D

Are you looking for someone who came across the question? and you are not looking for those answers by http://www.tektonics.org/tsr/abby.html (google result)

[wonggk]

我的一貫回應﹕任何試圖 defense 「聖經 literally 無誤論」的解釋，只會 create more problems that it answers。

[nkcwong]

我的一貫回應﹕任何試圖 defense 「聖經 literally 無誤論」的解釋，只會 create more problems that it answers。

手抄本當然有誤，這已經是foregone conclusion，沒有什麼需要爭拗的空間了。所以如果你指的是手抄本都無誤，根本沒有任何人會buy的。

可是, 相反的，任何試圖 defense 「聖經 literally 原文有誤論」的解釋，只會 create more problems that it answers。因為要有很多arbitrary或ad hoc hypotheses 去解釋為何X有誤，而Y無誤。只要原文有一個錯誤，就原則上不能保證連最核心的信念都不會有誤。那麼就如保羅所說的，我們的信就會是枉然的了。這點已經辯論過，不贅了，也不宜在這裏拉開話題。

[Daniel_Cheung]

既然近日有兩條聖經問題（另一條在這裡 (http://www.christianroundtable.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1635)），我便一次過去圖書館找釋經書嘗試回應，我得聲明，時間有限，不是找得很仔細的，不要問我為甚麼不查這本那本。

William Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, NICNT, 1974

“The chief problem in the allusion to David’s act is the reference to Abiathar the high priest. If the meaning is that David received the five loaves of holy bread at the time when Abiathar was high priest the reference is incorrect. The incident occurred when Ahimelech was high priest, and it was he who gave David the bread. Abiathar was a son of Ahimelech who escaped the masscare of the high priestly family, and who enters the record for the first time a chapter later (I Sam. 22:20). Because he served as high priest and was better known in association with David than his father, it is commonly assumed a primitive error entered the tradition before it came into Mark’s hands or an early marginal gloss which was in error moved into the text. The difficulty was early felt and is reflected in the manuscript tradition. An attractive proposal is that Mark’s intention has been misunderstood in the translation of the passage. The same grammatical construction occurs in Ch. 12:26, where it must be translated “have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage concerning the Bush, how God spoke unto him…?” The construction is designed to call attention to the section of a biblical book where the reference is found, in the above instance Ex. 3:1ff. In Ch. 2:26 Mark may have inserted the reference to Abiathar to indicate the section of the Samuel scroll in which the incident could be located.”

這個解釋是引自 Wenham, “Mark 2,26,” JThS n.s. 1 (1950), p. 145.



C. S. Mann, Anchor Bible, 1964

“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. 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 (e.g., AbuOmar = the father of Omar). Dr. Moses Aberbach confirms this with three examples from the Babylonian Talmud: Berakoth 18b; Yoma 29a; and Taanith 26b. In the first of these, one of the disciples of Judah the Patriarch is known as “the father of Samuel” while the third speaks of “the father of R. Zera.” While it is true that these are not Palestinian examples and are second and third century in date, they may be testimony to a long-standing custom in Aramaic. As stated, the tentative solution can be adduced to support either the familiar two-document hypothesis (a scribe had changed what he thought to be a dittography, and Matthew and Luke then omitted what they took to be ignorance on the part of Mark) or the Griesbach hypothesis (Mark, noticing that his two authorities did not supply the name of the high priest, supplied a familiar Semitism).


奇怪的是，Lane 完全不提這個可能性。

Guelich, WBC, 1982

“Wenham’s suggestion that [x] has the meaning “entitled” as in 12:26 to indicate the section in 1 Smauel pertaining to Abiathar (…) was rejected long ago by Meyer (45) and Lagrange(53). Though the better known of the two, Abiathar does not appear until 1 Sam 22:20 and then not as “high priest.” Furthermore, to function as a heading [x] would need to follow [y] more closely rather than several clauses later (…). Therefore, with no strong MSS evidence of this being a later gloss, we must assume that the name “Abiathar,” a high priest during David’s reign, was exchanged here with his father’s name, “Ahimelech.”

Guelich 好像完全不覺得要理會寫錯的問題，可能他認為當時的人不會那麼講究吧？！也可能他採用了Mann 的看法而懶得交代。但頗肯定的是他不滿Lane 竟然還沿用Wenham 的建議。

R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, 2002, NIGNT

“There was apparently some confusion over these names, since Abiathar generally appears as David’s priest along with Zadok, and yet the lists in 2 Sa. 8:17; 1 Ch. 24:6 give ‘Ahimelech son of Abiathar’ as priest along with Zadok. Mark seems to share that confusion; Abiathar was presumably there at the time (cf. 1 Sa. 22:20 for his subsequent escape from Nob), but he was not yet [z].”

天啊！歷代誌上24:6的（表面）錯誤才是更難處理！


Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark, 2001

“Casey [Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel. Cambridge University Press, 1998], however, suggests that the Aramaic original read “in the day (time) of Abiathar the high priest” and suggests that the translator failed to leave in the article before “high priest,” which left the text open to the suggestion that Mark had made a mistake. He also argues that “Abiathar was much more important than Ahimelech, and his presence may reasonably be deduced from the narrative in 1 Samuel.” Other meanings are given in later manuscripts of this verse to correct the problem, for example, by inserting a [a] before the words “high priest,” and note that Matthew and Luke omit the offending words altogether. Casey is also able to point out examples from early Judaism which assume that David’s eating of the showbread did indeed transpire on a Sabbath(…). Thus the assumption of an incoherence in Mark’s account of Jesus’ appeal to David’s example falls to the ground.”

Witherington III 採用了Casey 的解釋，用新證據為Wenham 的建議翻案。這 Casey 即是胖嘟嘟提供的網頁所說的那位。



至於歷代誌上24:6的問題，我在好幾本釋經書都找不到半點解釋，連Anchor Bible 也沒有談，只有這個：

Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 1993

“Although it is generally accepted that the text of II Sam. 8:17 is corrupt and should actually read ‘Abiathar the son of Ahimelech [the son of Ahitub]’, it would seem that the corruption predated the Chronicler, for whom ‘Ahimelech’ and not ‘Abiathar’ is Zadok’s counterpart in David’s time. In any case, according to the evidence of the book of Samuel, Abiathar was a direct descendent of Eli, the priest of Shiloh (I sam 14:3, 22:20), who for his part was very likely a descendant of the central priestly line in Israel, that of Eleazar. However, the genealogical picture which eventually crystallized must be regarded as a reflection, not of biological processes, but of social ones. Since the main priestly line was that of Zadok, it was he who was to be affiliated with Eleazar; for the sake of symmetry the other priestly house, that of Abiathar, had to be traced to Ithamar.

(c) The artificial literary nature of the text is evident, and the ‘historical’ event described in it is totally theoretical. The Chronicler, in full conformity with his literary and historiographical method, transforms a conviction about the origin of the priestly divisions into a specific historical event.”

[Ming Yuen Yee]

Oh, thanks a lot. Your survey is very meticulous. :ani_bowdown2: It is very helpful.

Indeed, the so-called "Abiathar Error" inevitably relates to the issue of inerrancy. Whether one already upholds some version of the inerrancy view (and whether one is ready to subject it to critical examination, or even revision) does affect one’s evaluation of what explanation is possible or plausible.

[Daniel_Cheung]

但歷代志上24:6的問題，似乎更難處理。馬太福音的族譜可理解為抽出幾個重要人物，但這裡卻把父與子倒置了，很難用某些寫作手法或關注來解釋。