Mark 2:26 — “In the Days of Abiathar the High Priest”: Error or Authentic Historical Reference?

“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.