MetaCatholic

One of the classic (often pointed out) mistakes in the Bible is Mark 2:26:

He [David] entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest (NRSV)
εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ Ἀβιαθὰρ ἀρχιερέως

Other translations I’ve looked at are similar in saying “when Abiathar was high priest” — NJB, NET, RV, GWN, GNB, NAB, RSV and, sort of, the roundabout NLT (during the days when Abiathar was high priest).

KJV, with undoubtedly a similar meaning in its time, is more periphrastic: “in the days of Abiathar the high priest” and this wording is followed by NIV.

Of course, the problem with this verse is that, according to 1 Samuel 21 Ahimelech is the priest in the story, not Abiathar. Now many atheists, particularly those who like to debate Christians, are often ex-fundamentalists who have rejected the view that Scripture is inspired, while still holding to the view that either scripture is inerrant in every possible respect, or God doesn’t exist. (Other atheists also either believe or purport to believe this bizarre antithesis.) They have seized on this verse as proving that the Bible is inconsistent and contains errors (and so God doesn’t exist). This attack increases the anxiety of those fundamentalists who continue to hold this narrow view of inerrancy and base their faith in God on it.

What I find interesting is that the two most recent translations committed to a high view of scripture entailing as literal as necessary a translation, say something slightly different:

he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest (HCSB, ESV)

First consider what these translations say about themselves. The ESV translation philosophy says:

The ESV is an “essentially literal” translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text … As such, its emphasis is on “word-for-word” correspondence, … Thus it seeks to be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original.

The HCSB philosophy says:

Optimal equivalence as a translation philosophy recognizes that form cannot be neatly separated from meaning and should not be changed  … unless comprehension demands it. The primary goal of translation is to convey the sense of the original with as much clarity as the original text and the translation language permit.

Now you will excuse me if I see a mismatch between the theory and the practice in this verse. Am I being unduly cynical if I see this as a deliberate attempt to soften the problem. “In the time of Abiathar the high priest” has become much vaguer. It could just about be expounded, without too many problems, as “in the time when Abiathar was around, the one who became high priest.” The problem is that, at least in the light of existing parallels (e.g Luke 3:2, Acts 11:28) ἐπὶ Ἀβιαθὰρ ἀρχιερέως simply means, as the majority of translations say,  “when Abiathar was high priest.” Granted that “in the time of” could still mean the same as “when”, why do translations that object generally to unnecessarily dynamic phrasing adopt such a paraphrase here, if not to soften the problem?

Matthew (12:4) and Luke (6:4), of course, seem to have spotted the same problem (as have some MSS) and simply omitted the reference. So it’s not a new issue. But the obvious inference is that either Jesus, Mark, or a tradent (Peter?) simply and instinctively used the name of the priest most closely associated with David in their temporal reference. The story still teaches the same point. Whether it’s Jesus who got this minor detail wrong, or Mark or some other, seems to me to be neither here nor there. If Jesus couldn’t make a mistake of this sort, it’s hard to see how he was human. If Mark couldn’t make a mistake of this sort, it’s hard to see how that leads anywhere but a divine dictation theory. What’s wrong with a minor booboo of the kind we all make from time to time? Just because the atheists are fundamentalists, we don’t have to impale ourselves on the horns of their dilemma.