THE BIBLE
CONSISTENT – 2
Anonymous
(Investigator 114, 2007
May)
THE PROGRAM
What
did the inscription
on Jesus' cross
say? Who replaced Judas Iscariot and became the 12th
apostle?
Did David have men with him when he fled from King Saul? The Bible is
accused
of being inconsistent on these points.
Over
many years I've shown
the Bible correct
in hundreds of scientific points. The implications of this result,
however,
are undermined if the Bible also has numerous inconsistencies.
In
The Bible Consistent
series we'll
investigate alleged Bible inconsistencies.
INCONSISTENCIES
The
inscription above
Jesus on the cross
according to the four Gospels was:
- This is Jesus
the
King of the Jews. (Matthew
27:37)
- The King of
the
Jews.
(Mark 15:26)
- This is the
King
of the Jews. (Luke 23:38)
- Jesus of
Nazareth,
the King of the Jews. (John
19:19
Possibly the four
writers each quoted part
of the inscription and the full inscription said:
- This is Jesus
of
Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
However, John 19:20 says
the inscription
was in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Therefore it's possible that the
translations
varied giving three versions as in Matthew, Luke and John with Mark
employing
the phrase the three versions had in common.
Who replaced Judas and
became the 12th
apostle – Paul or Matthias?
Paul called himself an
apostle, wrote 13
or 14 of the 27 books/letters of the New Testament, and spear-headed
Christianity's
expansion.
However, in Acts 1:21-26
the choice is out
of two men who:
…accompanied us during
all the time that
the Lord Jesus went in and out among us…And they cast lots for
them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was enrolled with the eleven
apostles. (1:26)
Who then replaced Judas?
The Christian church is
"built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets…" (Ephesians 2:19-20) Elsewhere the Church
is compared to a house and a temple. And that settles it. The
"foundation"
of any house or temple is laid down before the main structure. Since
the
Church began at Pentecost (Acts 2) Paul joined too late to be in the
"foundation".
Although Paul was an
"apostle" this designation
also applied to men with special missions besides the twelve apostles.
Sylvanus and Timothy, for example, were apostles but were not of the
twelve.
(I Thessalonians 2:5-6)
Now for a more difficult
"discrepancy":
DAVID'S MEN
And he [Jesus] said to
them [the Pharisees],
"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, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of Presence,
which
it was not lawful for any but the priest to eat, and also gave it
to
those who were with him?" (Mark 2:25-26; Matthew 12:3-4; Luke 6:3-4)
|
Previously
(#113) I cleared up the claims of
critics that:
- There were no
high
priests in David's time;
- The leading
priest
was Ahimelech, not Abiathar;
- Another
priest,
Zadok, outranked Abiathar;
- The Old
Testament
confused Ahimelech and Abiathar.
Apparently Jesus
additionally erred in
stating that David had "those who were with him." David (in I Samuel
21)
was alone and seemingly lied regarding men waiting nearby:
Then came David to Nob
[the main religious
centre] to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came to meet David
trembling,
and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no one with you?"
2 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.
3 Now then, what have you
at hand? Give me
five loaves of bread, or whatever is here."
4 And the priest answered
David, "I have
no common bread at hand, but there is holy bread; if only the young men
have kept themselves from women."
5 And David answered the
priest, "Of a truth
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 a common journey;
how
much more today will their vessels be holy?"
6 So the priest gave him
the holy bread…
Critics argue that
David's
statement in verse
2 was a lie since:
- David was not
on a
mission for King Saul but
was fleeing from him;
- Nowhere does
I Samuel
20-21 mention men with
David;
- Not enough
time had
elapsed for the sexual-purity
claim in 21:5 to be true.
The critics, therefore,
conclude that David's
claim about having men was "part of an elaborate lie" to better his
chances
of getting help from the priest.
Authors of some Bible
commentaries agree
that David lied:
The choice to deceive
Ahimelech by inventing
a secret mission and a hidden troop adds to the impression that
Ahimelech
was unaware of the real situation, though David's deception may have
been
an attempt to protect Ahimelech from accusations of conspiracy.
Unleavened bread would
remain edible for
some time, and the nonexistent troop provides an excuse for David to
ask
for a good supply. (Evans 2000)
If David lied about
having
men with him then
Jesus (and Matthew, Mark and Luke) was wrong.
DAVID'S STORY
TRUE
One of Saul's herdsmen
named Doeg observed
David with Ahimelech and reported it to Saul. This led to 85 priests
being
slaughtered. (I Samuel 22)
In Psalm 52 David says of
Doeg, "You love
evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth." Many
other
Psalms of David similarly criticize lies. (7:14; 34:13; 36:3; 38:12;
58:3;
62:4; 63:11; 101:7; 144:8, 11)
David, in I Samuel 21:2,
did not overtly
lie but spoke truths that could be misunderstood – he used ambiguity.
His
claim "The king has charged me with a matter…" was probably assumed by
Ahimelech to mean King Saul.
However, "king" could also
refer to:
- God since to
the
Israelites God was king (I
Samuel 12:12; Psalm 5:2);
- David
himself, since
David had been anointed
as king by Samuel. (Chapter 16)
Therefore, "The king has
charged me with
a matter…" was true. The "matter" was that David should act on his
anointing
and progress toward becoming actual king. Saul "charged" David with
this
"matter" indirectly by forcing David's hand by seeking to kill him, and
God, in David's viewpoint, had "charged" him with this "matter" when
Samuel
the prophet anointed him.
David's first statement to
Ahimelech, therefore,
was not an outright lie but a truth worded ambiguously.
What about his
subsequent statements?
DAVID AND HIS
MEN
Let's get a
bird's eye
view of I Samuel 10-22:
- Chapter
10.
Samuel
anointed Saul as king after
which Saul lived in his home town, Gibeah.
- Chapter
16.
Samuel
anointed David to replace
Saul as king.
- Chapter
17.
David
killed
Goliath and entered
Saul's service.
- Chapter
18.
David
moved
to Gibeah (18:2), was
befriended by Saul's son Jonathan, became an army commander, survived
several
attempts by Saul to kill him, and married Saul's daughter.
- Chapter
19.
Under
sentence of death David fled
his house at night, went to Ramah (Samuel's birthplace 1:19-20) and
"dwelt"
with Samuel in Naioth (a part of Ramah).
- Chapter
20.
David
fled
from Naioth to Gibeah,
met Jonathan, and learned that Saul still wanted him dead.
- Chapter
21.
The "holy
bread" incident with Ahimelech
at Nob. That same day David fled to Gath (Goliath's home-town).
- Chapter
22.
David
escaped
to the cave of Adullam
where 400 men joined him.
In Chapters
20 and 21
David seems a solitary
fugitive travelling alone except for his statement to Ahimelech about
rendezvousing
with his men. Since David asked for five loaves, let's assume he's
implying
there were four men.The four men
could have
joined David at Ramah/Naioth
because:
And he [David] and
Samuel went and dwelt
in Naioth. (19:20)
"Dwelt" implies a
lengthy stay, which is borne
out by the rest of the chapter. Therefore, at Naioth there was time and
opportunity for David's first active supporters to arrive.
In Chapter 20 David fled
from Naioth and
consulted with Jonathan at Gibeah. (20:11)
Jonathan agreed to sound
out Saul's attitude
during the feast of the new moon and report to David two days later.
(20:5,
12) David would meanwhile hide in a field.
Note the time periods:
20:5, 18 Tomorrow is
the
new moon
20:24 …when
the new
moon
came, the king sat
down to eat food.
20:27-34 But
on the
second day, the morrow after
the new moon…Jonathan ate no food the second day of the month…
20:35 In the
morning
Jonathan went out into
the field to the appointment with David…
For two days and parts of two more "David
hid himself in the field…" (20:24) David and any men keeping watch or
scouting around would have been extremely hungry.
After hearing from
Jonathan that King Saul
still wanted him dead David walked SE, 8km, from Gibeah to Nob (near
Jerusalem).
Nob was the location of
the tabernacle –
the elaborate tent which constituted the centre of Israelite worship
and
where the "showbread" or holy bread was kept. (Exodus 25:30; Leviticus
24:5ff)
At Gibeah David had
exercised great caution
to stay inconspicuous. Why then did he go to Nob, which bustled with
activity?
Probably because:
- David had not
eaten
at
least 3 days and at Nob
there should be food;
- David had no
network
of
safe-places to go to;
- To get
Goliath's
sword –
metal weapons were
scarce;
- It was only
8km.
Ahimelech wanted
assurance that David's
men were pure enough to eat holy bread and therefore asked if they had
been with women. David said:
Indeed 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 a common journey; how much more today will their
vessels
be holy?
The law required that a man
who had sexual intercourse
be ritually unclean until he bathed. (Leviticus 15:18) Men going into
battle
also had to be sexually clean. (Deuteronomy 23:10ff) This involved a
three-day
abstinence from sex. (Exodus 19:15)
David
had hidden three
days in the field
at Gibeah. Previous to that David "dwelt" with Samuel at Naioth. The
time
requirement for sexual holiness fits with men having joined David at
Naioth
who were now rendezvousing with him near Nob. David's story rings true.
"Holy
bread" was for
priests. The loaves
were made from 2/10 of an "ephah" of flour. (Exodus 25:30; Leviticus
24:5-9)
An ephah was a measure of capacity equal to 22 litres. Therefore David
wanted bread equivalent to 22 litres of flour – (i.e. 2/10 x 22 x 5).
Ahimelech
gave David the
sword of Goliath
stored in the tabernacle because David said he had no weapons. Again
this
rings true since David had left his wife hurriedly at night (19:11-12)
without opportunity to take weapons.
David
left Ahimelech that
same day (21:10)
and fled 40km west to Gath the home town of Goliath.
Carrying
five loaves plus
Goliath's sword,
and walking 40km after three days without food seems too strenuous –
unless
David shared the loaves and did not carry them.
At
Gath the Philistines
recognized David,
which made him afraid:
So he changed his
behavior before them;
he pretended to be mad when in their presence. He scratched marks on
the
doors of the gate, and let his spittle run down his beard. (I Samuel
21:13;
Psalm 34 & 56)
Then David fled Gath and went
SE to the "cave
of Adullam" where 400 men joined him:
David departed there
[Gath] and escaped
to the cave of Adullam; and when his brothers and all of his father's
house
heard
it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, and
everyone who was in debt; and everyone who was discontented, gathered
to
him; and he became captain over them. And there were with him about
four
hundred men. (22:1-2; Psalm 57, 142)
How did these 400 men from
far and wide "hear"
where David was?
David
would not have told
the Philistines
where he was going next. Nor could David press-gang strangers to pass
word
since they might report to King Saul or to the Philistines.
The
plausible answer is
David's men.
David must have had a
few
men who joined
him at Naioth as watchmen and messengers and contacted trusted
supporters.
The
non-mention of these
men in Chapters
19-21 is explained if they travelled separately except for several
rendezvous.
Furthermore,
in the Bible
bodyguards, messengers,
entourages and servants are not mentioned unless there's good reason.
At
Saul's feast on the new moon only Saul, Jonathan and a commander are
mentioned.
Yet, others such as servants and guards must have been present. At Nob
we initially meet only Ahimelech as if he lived there alone – in the
next
chapter, however, we realize that 85 priests and their families implies
hundreds of people.
Even whole
armies are
sometimes only implied.
For example, when David was still in Saul's service we read:
And there was war again;
and David [alone?]
went out and fought with the Philistines, and made a great slaughter
among
them… (19:8)
If people are often
unmentioned even when they're
swarming all around why shouldn't four men travelling separately also
remain
unmentioned in a narrative?
After 400 men joined David
at the cave of
Adullam he became a guerrilla marauder. Only then does I Samuel
repeatedly
mention his "men". (22:6; 23:3, 5, 8, 13, 24, 26; 24:2, 3, 4, 6, 7 etc)
This is because there
were
no longer just
four, but 400 and then 600. And most were close and not scouting
around.
It was the beginning of David getting significant support from the
population.
The 600 men also did stuff that directly involved David. They "came",
they
"said", they "fought with the Philistines". (23:3, 5; 24:4, 6)
Nevertheless,
many verses still mention only David when context shows other men are
included.
(22:5; 23:14, 19, 25, 29; 24:8; 25:2)
CONCLUSIONS
David's statement to
Ahimelech about having
men (21:2-5) was truthful because:
- David spent
enough
time
at Ramah/Naioth for
some men to meet him there;
- Except for
his
initial
ambiguity David was truthful
with Ahimelech;
- It required
"men" to
pass
word to, and summon
400 supporters. David's
men were
otherwise unmentioned
because they were few and rendezvoused with him infrequently.
Jesus sorted all this out
and expressed it
in the short phrase, "those who were with him."
It's not
Jesus (or Matthew, Mark and Luke) who misunderstood the book of Samuel
but the critics.
REFERENCES:
Evans, M. J. 2000 New
International Biblical
Commentary 1 and 2 Samuel, Hendrickson, p. 97.
Frank, H. T. (Editor) 1984
Atlas of Bible
Lands, Hammond.
Hundreds
of articles about the Bible:
https://ed5015.tripod.com/