When Jesus defended his disciples for eating grain on the Sabbath, he appealed to the time David ate the Bread of Presence, which the Law limited to priestly consumption (Mark 2:25–26). God recorded the original incident in 1 Samuel 21:1–6 when a famished David sought solace with the priests of Nob. But there is a problem. Jesus says the event occurred “in the time of Abiathar the high priest,” but 1 Samuel records Ahimelech was the priest. Was Jesus wrong? Or was the writer of 1 Samuel wrong? Does this contradiction impact the credibility of the Bible? Are there any plausible explanations for Jesus’ apparent mistake? Yes.
Father and Son
One explanation says that since Ahimelech and Abiathar were father and son, that it is possible they shared both names, “Ahimelech Abiathar.” First Samuel 22:20 reveals that Abiathar was Ahimelech’s only surviving son after Saul’s murderous assault on the house of Ahimelech. Second Samuel 8:17 lends weight to this idea since it says Ahimelech is Abiathar’s son, instead of father (cf. 1 Chr. 18:16; 24:6).
Passage Reference
Another explanation is that Jesus is using Abiathar as a passage reference. Since chapters and verses didn’t exist in the days of Jesus, people referred to prominent people and events. For example, Jesus refers to Moses and “the passage about the bush” (Mark 12:26). Jesus used the same phrase in Mark 2:26. There are a lot of passages about David, so he narrows it down to the passage about Abiathar the priest. Abiathar was not the high priest at the time of David’s famine, but Abiathar plays prominently in the extended story of Saul’s murderous wrath. Jesus refers to the incident in the passage about Abiathar.
Two Plausible Ideas
These are two plausible ideas that help us explain the difficulty of this passage. In fact, either of these removes the contradiction and validates the credibility of the Bible. Let God be true, though everyone was a liar.
Preaching Minister