Re: David's Companions
Ralph Nielsen (nielsen@uidaho.edu)
Fri, 18 Jul 1997 22:09:00 -0700
>TILL
>I've about given up on ever hearing any kind of response from Michael Hughes
>on the David and Situational Ethics postings, and Jerry seems to be dragging
>his feet on trying to justify his "repentance" solution to the claim in 1
>Kings 15:5 that David never turned aside from ANYTHING that Yahweh commanded
>him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
>Jerry must present a sensible argument to show that David's willingness to
>repent was what the writer meant when the word "repentance" or its
>equivalent is not even suggested in the text.
>
>So as I promised before, I am going to post another problem involved in the
>story of David and the show bread. As I have already noted, David went to
>the priest Ahimelech to ask for food, because he had taken flight when
>Jonathan informed him that Saul intended to kill him (1 Sam. 20:24-42). In
>response to Ahimelech's question, "Why are you alone and no man with you?"
>David lied and said that he was on a secret mission for the king and that
>the men who were with him were in a hiding place. Let's look at the text
>again to get an overview of what allegedly happened that day.
>
>>1 Samuel 21:1 David came to Nob to the priest Ahimelech. Ahimelech came
>trembling to meet David, and said to him, "Why are you alone, and no one
>with you?"
>>2 David said to the priest Ahimelech, "The king has charged me with a
>matter, and said to me, 'No one must 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 The priest answered David, "I have no ordinary bread at hand, only holy
>bread--provided that the young men have kept themselves from women."
>>5 David answered the priest, "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?"
>>6 So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there
>except the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the LORD, to
>be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
>>
>
>The situation here is rather obvious, David knew that to make his story of a
>secret mission believable to Ahimlech, he would have to pretend that he had
>men with him to assist in the mission, so when Ahimelech asked why no men
>were with him, David told another lie and said that they were in hiding.
>Ahimelech, being a priest, wanted assurances that these men were pure enough
>to eat the sacred show bread, and so he asked David if they had (gasp!) been
>with any women recently. David then lied again and said that "women have
>been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition." These men,
>however, were nonexistent; they were made up as a part of David's false
>scenario to make it believable to Ahimelech that he was on a secret mission
>for the king.
>
>The writer of Mark, however, was so superficially knowledgeable in this
>story of David's flight that he thought that the men whom David fabricated
>were real and that they too had eaten the showbread.
>
>>Mark 2:24 The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is not
>lawful on the sabbath?"
>>25 And he said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he AND
>HIS COMPANIONS were hungry and in need of food?
>>26 He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the
>bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to
>eat, AND HE GAVE SOME TO HIS COMPANIONS."
>>
>
>The same mistake occurs in Matthew's account.
>
>>Matthew 12:3 He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he
>AND HIS COMPANIONS were hungry?
>>4 He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it
>was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests.
>>
>And Luke made the same mistake.
>
>>Luke 6:3 Jesus answered, "Have you not read what David did when he AND HIS
>COMPANIONS were hungry?
>>4 He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence,
>which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, AND GAVE SOME TO HIS
>COMPANIONS?"
>>
>So three verbally inspired writers made the same mistake and gave companions
>to David when none were with him. Furthermore, they had the omniscient
>Jesus, through whom the world was created, saying that companions were with
>Jesus when the text in 1 Samuel 20 and 21 make it clear that David was alone
>on his flight and fabricated companions in order to get help from the priest
>Ahimelech. Mark read this story superficially and obviously didn't
>understand it, and Matthew and Luke, in using Mark as their source, repeated
>the mistake.
>
RALPH NIELSEN
So not only David lied, but Jesus did, too? Now if Jesus had actually been
the descendant of David instead of having a Ghost for a father, he could
have claimed that he was just a chip off the old block.