Complete textual-variant dossier
No adverse entailment · agrees with the received text
Sections distinguish readings, edition history, evidence, theological consequences, and the Research Center's evaluation. CBGM is an analytical tool; editorial committees—not the software—make textual decisions.
1Passage and issue
Passage
Issue
The phrase about Abiathar appears in both received and principal critical texts, though some witnesses omit or modify it. The historical question turns on Greek idiom and the Samuel narrative, not on an automatic assumption of error.
Variant class
Omission / addition
2Textus Receptus
Greek reading
“In the days of Abiathar the high priest” (ἐπὶ Ἀβιαθὰρ ἀρχιερέως).
Authorized Version
“How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest.” — Mark 2:26
Edition note
The Research Center uses the received Greek text underlying the Authorized Version as its baseline; edition-specific differences are recorded when the variation unit requires them.
Historical annotation witness
Erasmus’s Annotationes
Erasmus’s printed Greek text, his Latin annotation, and the Research Center’s evaluation are distinct evidence. Each edition remains separately identified because Erasmus revised the Annotationes across his five editions.
Not yet assessed. No inference about Erasmus’s silence has been made. A Latin annotation and translation will appear here only after an edition and exact locus have been verified.
The Erasmus annotation audit has not yet been completed for this locus. Do not infer from this status that Erasmus was silent.
Westminster and Dutch annotation witnesses
Westminster Annotations
Not yet assessed. No inference from silence is made.
Dutch Annotations
Not yet assessed. No inference from silence is made.
3NA28 baseline and critical-text rationale
NA28 baseline reading
Omission of the phrase, or addition of an article that more explicitly permits “in the time of Abiathar, the later high priest.”
Translation or explanation
Omission of the phrase, or addition of an article that more explicitly permits “in the time of Abiathar, the later high priest.”
Metzger’s report of the UBS committee
Metzger reports the UBS4 committee's treatment of the variation unit. The note grounds the relevant decision in the weight and distribution of external attestation, the comparative difficulty of the readings; the printed confidence rating represented here is {A}. This is a controlled synopsis rather than a quotation.
Locator: Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., note on Mark 2:26
ECM / CBGM evidence and editors
No passage-specific ECM/CBGM editorial explanation is attached to this record. Official method sources describe the CBGM as a set of coherence procedures, not a decision-maker: editors define variation units and local stemmata and evaluate pre-genealogical, genealogical, and stemmatic coherence together with transcriptional, intrinsic, and other philological evidence.
4UBS6 and intended NA29 revision
No UBS6 / intended NA29 main-text change is recorded for this passage in the controlled 169-change ledger.
No change row is attached to this passage.
UBS6 is published, and the German Bible Society identifies its Greek main text as identical to the intended NA29 main text. The complete NA29 volume and its apparatus remain forthcoming. Project-ledger rows retain their source and verification statements until they are checked against the published UBS6 text and, when available, the NA29 apparatus.
5Doctrinal and four-point analysis
Effect class
Exegetical or interpretive consequence
Exact proposition affected
No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Doctrinal analysis
Exegetical or interpretive consequence. The record does not establish that the variant by itself removes an entire Christian doctrine; explicit wording, exegesis, and cumulative testimony must be distinguished.
Bahnsen four-point examination
Arbitrariness
At Mark 2:26, the critical choice avoids arbitrariness only to the extent that it states public manuscript, transcriptional, and intrinsic grounds. Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. The Textus Receptus and the principal critical texts retain it. The words are not an embarrassment created by the received tradition and removed by every modern editor.
Inconsistency
The criteria used at Mark 2:26 must be applied to comparable readings as well. A principle such as age, difficulty, brevity, or coherence cannot be decisive here and quietly reversed elsewhere merely to escape a historical, grammatical, or theological difficulty.
Consequences
Exegetical or interpretive consequence: No single doctrinal proposition is directly changed; the principal consequence is exegetical, historical, or cumulative.
Preconditions of intelligibility
The argument presupposes stable authorship, meaningful language, objective logical norms, transmissible evidence, and a coherent account of how Scripture can be received and identified by the church. The analysis tests whether the method can make those conditions intelligible without reducing the text to an indefinitely revisable editorial construct.
This framework examines an argument and its conditions; it does not claim to read an editor's private motives.
6Argument for the received reading
External and historical evidence
Some witnesses omit it; others adjust the grammar. That correction history confirms that ancient readers saw the chronological question, but it also warns against making one article do more historical work than Greek syntax permits. They are ancient, well attested, and capable of a straightforward first-century sense.
Internal and transcriptional evidence
Principal competing reading: Omission of the phrase, or addition of an article that more explicitly permits “in the time of Abiathar, the later high priest.” Some witnesses omit it; others adjust the grammar. The omission is easy to understand as correction.
Reception and ecclesiastical use
The Textus Receptus and the principal critical texts retain it. The words are not an embarrassment created by the received tradition and removed by every modern editor.
Providential-preservation analysis
Providential preservation is not used as a substitute for evidence at Mark 2:26. It supplies the confessional context in which manuscript transmission, broad reception, and the church's actual possession of Scripture are evaluated together.
Canonical coherence with the rest of Scripture
Canonical coherence remains an explicit test: a proposed reading must make grammatical and theological sense within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. No conflict is asserted merely because two editions differ; the claimed incoherence must be demonstrated at this passage.
Canonical-coherence verdict
The Authorized Version is retained where its representation of the TR forms a coherent reading within the immediate context and the rest of Scripture. Any competing form must demonstrate an equal or better canonical fit rather than merely invoke an edition or method label.
Response to the principal critical argument
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending. The Textus Receptus and the principal critical texts retain it. The words are not an embarrassment created by the received tradition and removed by every modern editor.
Conclusion
The absence of the Greek article before “high priest” does not require an indefinite office holder. Proper names and titles regularly behave differently from English noun phrases. Some scribes added an article precisely because they wanted the phrase to carry an explanatory, later-title sense. That correction history confirms that ancient readers saw the chronological question, but it also warns against making one article do more historical work than Greek syntax permits.
The words should stay. They are ancient, well attested, and capable of a straightforward first-century sense. An interpreter may still debate whether Mark names the period, the narrative section, or Abiathar by proleptic title. None of those readings requires charging Christ’s answer with ignorance. The text has a difficulty to study, not an error waiting to be deleted.
Logical entailment
The Authorized Version serves as the faithful English representation. The preservation claim applies immediately to the authentic Hebrew and Greek texts—not to an English translation as though it were the inspired source.
Canonical-status rule: Physical printing is not canonical inclusion. If an edition prints a passage in double brackets while judging it secondary or non-original, it disagrees with the received text concerning the identity and extent of inspired Scripture.
No adverse entailment: agrees with the received text.
Necessary reasoning chain
- The current critical main-text reading assessed at Mark 2:26 agrees with the received Hebrew/Greek reading at the variation unit governed by this card.
- An adverse preservation entailment at this locus would require the current critical form to displace a different received reading.
- Because no such displacement occurs at the assessed locus, no adverse preservation consequence follows here.
Sources
- Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)Chapter 1, section 8 — Governing confessional preservation claim
- F. H. A. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text followed in the Authorized VersionReceived Greek reading
- Digital ECM — Mark 2:26Current critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- German Bible Society — UBS6 publications and relation to NA29Current critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
- German Bible Society — The Sixth Edition of the Greek New TestamentCurrent critical-edition, ECM, or editorial documentation
Read the full research essay and its sources
Passage: Mark 2:26
Received reading: “In the days of Abiathar the high priest” (ἐπὶ Ἀβιαθὰρ ἀρχιερέως).
Principal competing reading: Omission of the phrase, or addition of an article that more explicitly permits “in the time of Abiathar, the later high priest.”
Editorial status: Preliminary record accepted for staging; independent review remains pending.
“How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest.” — Mark 2:26
David received the showbread from Ahimelech in 1 Samuel 21. Mark says the event occurred “in the days of Abiathar the high priest.” Because Abiathar was Ahimelech’s son and later held the office, the phrase has often been called a historical mistake. Some witnesses omit it; others adjust the grammar. The Textus Receptus and the principal critical texts retain it.
That agreement is important. The words are not an embarrassment created by the received tradition and removed by every modern editor. The harder phrase has survived precisely in the editions most willing to prefer difficult readings.
What the Greek can say
The construction epi Abiathar archiereōs need not mean “while Abiathar was serving as high priest at that exact moment.” It can locate an event in the time associated with a well-known person, or even point readers toward the scriptural section connected with him. English “in the days of” is broad in the same way.
Abiathar dominates the continuing story. After Saul’s slaughter of the priests, he escapes to David, brings the ephod, shares David’s exile, and later serves as priest during the kingdom. Naming the better-known survivor can locate the bread episode within the Abiathar narrative without denying that Ahimelech handed David the loaves.
The omission is easy to understand as correction. Matthew and Luke recount the same controversy without naming either priest. A copyist troubled by the chronology could make Mark agree with the parallels by dropping the phrase. Adding the article before “high priest” is another attempt to make the temporal sense explicit.
Jesus’ argument does not rest on confusing the two men. He appeals to a recorded act in which ceremonial restriction yielded before urgent human need, then asserts the divine purpose of the Sabbath. The historical marker directs the hearer to that episode.
The absence of the Greek article before “high priest” does not require an indefinite office holder. Proper names and titles regularly behave differently from English noun phrases. Some scribes added an article precisely because they wanted the phrase to carry an explanatory, later-title sense. That correction history confirms that ancient readers saw the chronological question, but it also warns against making one article do more historical work than Greek syntax permits.
The words should stay. They are ancient, well attested, and capable of a straightforward first-century sense. An interpreter may still debate whether Mark names the period, the narrative section, or Abiathar by proleptic title. None of those readings requires charging Christ’s answer with ignorance. The text has a difficulty to study, not an error waiting to be deleted.
Sources and further reading
- F. H. A. Scrivener, ed., The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text Followed in the Authorised Version (Cambridge, 1894).
- Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010), text and apparatus.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., notes on the stated passage.
- 1 Samuel 21:1–9; 22:9–23; Mark 2:23–28; Matthew 12:1–8; Luke 6:1–5.
7Related materials
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- Record
- VAR-2009
- Status
- Preliminary
- Version
- 1.1-dossier
- Review
- Level B — Editorial synthesis
- Editor
- Chris Thomas
- Reviewer
- Independent reviewer pending assignment
- First date
- 1st century · Date Range
- Last revised
- 2026-07-22
Evidence and editorial controls
- Verification
- Passage, principal readings, and stated editorial comparison checked against Scrivener’s received Greek text and the SBLGNT apparatus; exhaustive manuscript collation remains open. Metzger commentary entries were matched by exact passage where present; ECM/CBGM rationale is passage-specific only when an official editorial explanation is cited. Ledger rows are identified as UBS6 / intended NA29 data but retain their row-level verification caveats pending direct collation.
- Rights and access
- Original editorial synthesis. Biblical readings are short scholarly quotations; cited editions and digital witnesses retain their stated rights and access conditions.
- Known limitations
- This staging record summarizes the principal variation unit and representative evidence. It is not a fresh collation of every extant manuscript, version, lectionary, or patristic citation.
Links from this record
No public outgoing links are recorded.
Records that cite or connect here
No public backlinks are recorded.
Corrections and evidence submissions
No correction submission is presently attached to this record. Submit evidence or read the correction policy.
Chris Thomas, “Mark 2:26 — “In the Days of Abiathar the High Priest”: Error or Authentic Historical Reference?,” VAR-2009, Confessional Bibliology Research Center, version 1.0-staging, last revised 2026-07-22.
Revision history
- — Chris Thomas