Till:
I suspect Turkel meant to say 1 Samuel 21:1-5, but if he thinks this
text "suggests" that there were men with David, maybe he will favor us
with an explication of the passage to point out the language that
"suggests" this. As I will show later, by quoting part of my article
that Turkel skipped over, a proper interpretation of 1 Samuel 20:1-5
leads to the conclusion that in order to increase his chances of
getting help from Ahimelech, David lied about having men in hiding
nearby. My arguments for this premise are detailed and thorough, and
Turkel didn't even attempt to answer them.
Turkel:
How? Here is his reasoning, such as it is:
David asks for only five loaves of bread, and Farrell thinks it "rather unlikely... How long would that have lasted a contingent of any size?" It would have lasted a contingent of five to ten men a full day, enough to get them to their next destination for food (David, a popular hero, would have had many allies), which is all that really matters. Unless Farrell wants to somehow hypothesize a huge group and no other stopping points possible, he's just beating the air.
Till:
I like it when Turkel makes my work easy for me. I published an article
of 5,463 words in which I devoted 4,768 words to the main premise of
the article, which was that Jesus said that David had men with him when
the Old Testament account of the incident indicates otherwise, and
Turkel replied to this premise in only 460 words. I used only 18 words
in passing comments and then 101 words in a concluding paragraph to
point out that Ahimelech and not Abiathar was high priest at the time
of the incident, and Turkel linked his "rebuttal" to a 205-word
"explanation" of the Abiathar problem, which fell completely apart
under my analysis in Part One. In other words, Turkel used almost half
as many words to reply to my 119-word comments about Abiathar as he
used to "reply" to my 4,768-word defense of the premise that Jesus
erred in saying that men were with David.
I point this out to remind Turkel's fans that his apologetic methods are shallow. Before heaping praise on him for his "refutations" of alleged Bible discrepancies, his readers should demand that he at least link them to whatever article he is "answering" so that they can see both sides of the issue. The fact that Turkel doesn't supply links for his readers is an indication that he is unsure of his rebuttal arguments, because if he had any confidence in them, he would surely want readers to see the weakness of the arguments he was rebutting.
Turkel mentioned that I had argued that the contexts of 1 Samuel 20-21 make it clear that David was alone on his flight, so all I have to do to reply to Turkel is simply quote my analyses of those chapters to show that my conclusion was correct. Before I do that, however, I need to comment on an assertion that he made above when he said that five loaves of bread would have been sufficient to last a "contingent of five to ten men a full day," which would have been long enough to last them until they got to "their next destination for food." David was a "popular hero," Turkel said, and so he would have had "many allies."
Once again, we see Turkel grabbing an explanation out of thin air--as he did in the Abiathar matter--without offering a shred of textual evidence. Why do you suppose he posits how-it-could-have-been scenarios without trying to substantiate them with textual evidence? The answer should be clear to anyone who bothers to read the Old Testament account of David's flight from Saul. Verses 1-9 in chapter 21 related David's encounter with Ahimelech, which resulted in his obtaining bread and Goliath's sword from the priest, and then the very next verse.... Well, let's just look at what happened beginning with verse 10.
21:10 David rose and fled that day from Saul; he went to King Achish of Gath. 11 The servants of Achish said to him, "Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, 'Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands'?" 12 David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of King Achish of Gath. 13 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. 14 Achish said to his servants, "Look, you see the man is mad; why then have you brought him to me? 15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?"
No references are made to stopping points between Nob and Gath so that David could get more food from some of his many "allies." The location of Nob is uncertain, but it was in Benjamite territory (Neh. 11:32), which would have put it close to Jerusalem and Gibeah, the town from which David began his flight. Isaiah 10:30-32 also located it close to the "hill of Jerusalem."
Isaiah 10:30 Cry aloud, O daughter Gallim! Listen, O Laishah! Answer her, O Anathoth! 31 Madmenah is in flight, the inhabitants of Gebim flee for safety. 32 This very day he will halt at Nob, he will shake his fist at the mount of daughter Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
Gath was located in Philistine territory about 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem, so the narrator of this story took David from Nob, within fist-shaking distance of Jerusalem, to Gath in just one six-word sentence. Turkel can--and probably will--argue that the failure to mention other stops for food between Nob and Gath doesn't mean that such stops weren't made. That would be true, but if David had these "many allies" between Nob and Gath that Turkel conjured up out of nowhere, then David didn't use common sense in going to the tabernacle in Nob to ask for Ahimelech's food. A sacred location like this would have been too visible a risk to take if David knew that he had other "allies" in more secluded places from whom he could have obtained food. The fact that he risked being seen by going to the tabernacle is a strong implication that he felt that he had no other choice. As it was, he was seen at Nob by Doeg the Edomite, who reported the sighting to Saul and brought about the massacre of the priests at Nob. If we add this risk factor to all the evidence presented in my textual analysis below, which showed that David was alone in his flight, we can write off the "many allies" that Turkel spoke of as just more speculation necessitated by his desire to find harmony in the Bible.
With that matter out of the way, I now direct attention to the part of my article that Turkel skipped over. By no stretch of imagination can he dismiss this section of the article as just "fluff," "set-up," or "irrelevant distractions." The section I quote will dispose of two of Turkel's denials and show that (1) David was alone in his flight, and (2) David lied to Ahimelech and said that men were with him hiding in an appointed place. As I indicated I would do in Part One, I will label all quotations from my article with WMWD [What Men with David].
WMWD [quotation begins]:
For some time before this incident, friction had been building between David and Saul, who was king of Israel at the time. Because of David's increasing popularity with the people, Saul had come to hate him and was plotting to kill him. David had become fearful for his life, and so when the king's feast of the new moon was just a day away, David expressed his concern to Jonathan, the king's son who had become David's best friend, that Saul would try to kill him if David attended the feast. David and Jonathan devised a plan whereby David would hide in a field while Jonathan went to the feast to evaluate his father's mood toward David. If Jonathan sensed that Saul intended harm to David, Jonathan would come to the field on the third day and send a signal to David to let him know that his life was in danger. Jonathan went to the feast and, as anticipated, he found his father furious at David. As previously agreed, Jonathan returned to the field two days later and sent the signal that let David know that Saul intended to kill him. David came out of hiding, talked briefly to Jonathan, and then began a flight from Saul that would take him into Philistine territory where he would live as a guerrilla marauder until Saul was killed in battle with the Philistines (1 Sam. 20:5-42).The first stop that David made in his flight from Saul was at Nob, where he sought help from the priest Ahimelech and not Abiathar, whom Jesus in the text quoted above, said was the high priest at the time. When Ahimelech saw him, he asked David, "Why are you alone and no man with you?"
In his reply, David lied and said that he was on a secret mission for the king and that the men who were with him on the mission were hiding in an appointed place. Let's look at the full text to get an overview of what the Old Testament says allegedly happened between David and Ahimelech that day.
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?" 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. Now then, what have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here." The priest answered David, "I have no ordinary bread at hand, only holy bread--provided that the young men have kept themselves from women." 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?" 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 Yahweh, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away (1 Samuel 21:1-6).I have emphasized the name Ahimelech in bold print to direct attention to the obvious fact that the priest who gave David assistance on this occasion was Ahimelech and not Abiathar, whom Mark claimed Jesus had said was the high priest at the time of this incident. Abiathar was Ahimelech's son, who succeeded his father after Saul killed him for having aided David in his flight (1 Sam. 22:16-19), so this is just another discrepancy in the book that biblical inerrantists claim is perfectly unified and harmonious from cover to cover.
The situation as recorded in the passage quoted above is rather obvious. David knew that to make his story of a secret mission believable to Ahimelech, he would have to pretend that he had men with him to assist in the mission. That was a lie, of course, because David had not been sent on a secret mission by king Saul; he was, in fact, fleeing for his life from Saul. So when Ahimelech asked why no men were with him, David told another lie and said that they were in hiding. However, there were no men with David, because when he learned from Jonathan that Saul was planning to kill him, he had made a rapid retreat from the field he had been hiding in for three days. He had had no time to find men who would be willing to flee with him. This, then, was the second lie that David told on this occasion (if we are to believe in the accuracy of the Old Testament account). After lying about being on a secret mission for the king, David, who was alone in his flight, told the priest Ahimelech that he had men with him waiting in an appointed place.
Ahimelech, being a priest, wanted assurances that these men, whom David pretended were in hiding, were pure enough to eat the sacred showbread, and so he asked David if they had been with any women recently. The Levitical law required that a man who had had sexual relations with a woman be considered ritually unclean until he had bathed (Lev. 15:18), and men going into battle (as Ahimelech would have assumed that these "men" with David might do) were also required to be sexually clean (Deut. 23:10ff). Hence, the priest wanted assurances that if he gave something as ceremonially sacred as the showbread to David and his men, they would also be ceremonially clean before they ate it. So David lied again and said that "women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition." These men, however, were nonexistent; David had fabricated them as a part of his false scenario to make it believable to Ahimelech that he was on a secret mission for the king. This, then, was a third lie that David told in order to dupe Ahimelech into helping him in his flight from Saul.
The writer of Mark, however, was apparently so superficially knowledgeable in this Old Testament story of David's flight that he thought the men whom David had fabricated were real and had also eaten the showbread.
Mark 2:24-26: The Pharisees said to him [Jesus], "Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the sabbath?" But he said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?"The same mistake occurred in Matthew's account.
Matthew 12:3-4: He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?"And Luke made the same mistake.
Luke 6:3-4: Jesus answering them said, "Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat?"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 David, whereas the context of 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. If Mark ever read this story, he must have read it so superficially that he didn't understand that David had merely made up a contingent of men waiting in an appointed place so that his lie about a secret mission would seem credible to the priest. Matthew and Luke, in using Mark as their source, repeated the mistake.
At this point, I should be able to put a period and go on to another article, but inerrantists won't let it be that simple. No matter how compelling the evidence for discrepancy may be, they will always invent a how-it-could-have-been scenario to "explain" away the discrepancy. In the matter of David's companions, a popular "explanation" is that other men were with David; the biblical account just didn't mention them except when David referred to them in his conversation with the priest Ahimelech, but to confirm that the "men" David referred to in this conversation were nothing more than part of a lie that David told Ahimelech in order to get help during his flight from Saul, I'm going to take the previous chapter, section by section, and show that, as this story was told by a presumably inspired writer, it left no opportunity for David to gather men to accompany him on his flight from Saul. I'll begin with the section that tells of David's and Jonathan's plan to find out if Saul was plotting to kill David. It is rather long, but the best way to attack an inerrantist quibble like this is to walk the quibbler through his own inspired text to show that it offers him no support.
1 Samuel 20:16-34: Thus Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, "May Yahweh seek out the enemies of David." Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him; for he loved him as he loved his own life. Jonathan said to him, "Tomorrow is the new moon; you will be missed, because your place will be empty. On the day after tomorrow, you shall go a long way down; go to the place where you hid yourself earlier, and remain beside the stone there. I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I shot at a mark. Then I will send the boy, saying, 'Go, find the arrows.' If I say to the boy, 'Look, the arrows are on this side of you, collect them,' then you are to come, for, as Yahweh lives, it is safe for you and there is no danger. But if I say to the young man, 'Look, the arrows are beyond you,' then go; for Yahweh has sent you away. As for the matter about which you and I have spoken, Yahweh is witness between you and me forever."Certainly, there is nothing in this text to indicate that anyone else was present except David and Jonathan. Indeed, the subject of the conversation was such that we can reasonably assume that they would not have wanted others to overhear it. Furthermore, this conversation took place before David began his flight from Saul, so even if others were present, that would not indicate that they were present three days later. The continuation of the story doesn't even hint that David had anyone with him as he hid in the field.
Verses 24-34: So David hid himself in the field. When the new moon came, the king sat at the feast to eat. The king sat upon his seat, as at other times, upon the seat by the wall. Jonathan stood, while Abner sat by Saul's side; but David's place was empty. Saul did not say anything that day; for he thought, "Something has befallen him; he is not clean, surely he is not clean." But on the second day, the day after the new moon, David's place was empty. And Saul said to his son Jonathan, "Why has the son of Jesse not come to the feast, either yesterday or today?" Jonathan answered Saul, "David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem; he said, 'Let me go; for our family is holding a sacrifice in the city, and my brother has commanded me to be there. So now, if I have found favor in your sight, let me get away, and see my brothers.' For this reason he has not come to the king's table."Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan. He said to him, "You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother's nakedness? For as long as the son of Jesse lives upon the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established. Now send and bring him to me, for he shall surely die." Then Jonathan answered his father Saul, "Why should he be put to death? What has he done?" But Saul threw his spear at him to strike him; so Jonathan knew that it was the decision of his father to put David to death. Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger and ate no food on the second day of the month, for he was grieved for David, and because his father had disgraced him.
We learn in this section of the story, that Jonathan and David had made a plan. David, in accordance with the plan, hid in a field while Jonathan went to the feast. We would certainly understand that people were present at the feast of the new moon that Saul had given, but David wasn't there. He was hiding in a field, and the text mentioned nothing at all about anyone else's being with him. Indeed, if David had taken others with him that would have jeopardized the whole plan that he and devised, because the whole purpose of the plan was to hide David in a place where he would be safe from Saul. One person could very likely hide unseen in a field for three days, but a group of men would have increased the chances of being seen, not even to mention the possibility that if David had taken a group with him, he would have run the risk of having one or more of them sneak away to blow his cover. The very nature of the plan that David and Jonathan devised certainly implied that David hid alone in the field.
The day after the clash with his father, Jonathan came to tell David what he had learned at Saul's banquet.
Verses 35-40: In the morning Jonathan went out into the field to the appointment with David, and with him was a little boy. He said to the boy, "Run and find the arrows that I shoot." As the boy ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. When the boy came to the place where Jonathan's arrow had fallen, Jonathan called after the boy and said, "Is the arrow not beyond you?" Jonathan called after the boy, "Hurry, be quick, do not linger." So Jonathan's boy gathered up the arrows and came to his master. But the boy knew nothing; only Jonathan and David knew the arrangement. Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and said to him, "Go and carry them to the city."In this section of the chapter, there were only three persons: David, hiding in the field; Jonathan, shooting the arrows; and the boy retrieving the arrows. After the boy had retrieved the arrows, Jonathan sent him back into the city. That left just Jonathan and David, and as the text will later show, only after the boy was gone, did David rise up in the field and go to Jonathan. David's waiting until the boy was gone before showing himself to Jonathan was just another indication of the urgent need that David felt to keep his whereabouts a tight secret, so everything related thus far in this story indicates that David was by himself in the field.
Verses 41-42: As soon as the boy had gone, David rose from beside the stone heap and prostrated himself with his face to the ground. He bowed three times, and they kissed each other, and wept with each other; David wept the more. Then Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace, since both of us have sworn in the name of Yahweh, saying, 'Yahweh shall be between me and you, and between my descendants and your descendants, forever.'" He got up and left; and Jonathan went into the city.So as soon as David learned from Jonathan that Saul intended to kill him, David "got up and left," and Jonathan returned to the city. This statement ended chapter 20, and the next chapter began with David's encounter with Ahimelech in the town of Nob. There isn't a hint anywhere in this entire story that anyone else besides Jonathan, the boy, and David were in the field in the final scene, so if Jonathan and the boy returned to the city, who were these men that some inerrantists claim were with David but just weren't mentioned?
Till:
This detailed analysis of chapter 20 shows that there is no textual
basis at all for thinking that the narrator meant that David had men
with him when he fled, so this brings us to Turkel's claim that "1
Samuel 20:1-5 [sic] suggests that there were men with David." In
typical fashion, Turkel completely skipped over the textual evidence
that I presented in my article to show that this reference to "men" was
simply part of an elaborate lie that David told Ahimelch in order to
get his help. All I need to do is quote that part of my article that
Turkel left out of his "rebuttal."
WMWD:
Some inerrantists will agree that there were no men in the field and that David took no men with him when he fled, but they find a solution to the problem in the answer that David gave to Ahimelech's question, "Why are you alone, and no one with you?" David's answer was that he was on a secret mission for the king and that he had "made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place" (21:2). In other words, these inerrantists claim that men had been sent, probably by Jonathan, to link up with David at some place but that David and the men had not yet reached the rendezvous point.There are serious problems with this explanation. After apparently convincing Ahimelech that he was on a secret mission for the king, David said, "What have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever is here" (v:3). It seems rather unlikely that David, knowing that he was going to link up with a contingent of men who would continue on with him in his flight, would have asked for just five loaves of bread. How long would that have lasted a contingent of any size? The request for just five loaves of bread would suggest instead that the writer of this account understood that David was by himself on his flight.
Till:
Turkel speculated that David had with him a contingent
of only five to ten men, and so five loaves would have been sufficient
to last them a full day until they could get additional food from some
of David's "many allies." I addressed that argument above and then
quoted my analysis of chapter 20 to show that the text gives no basis
at all for thinking that men were with David. Therefore, we can dismiss
Turkel's contingent of five or ten men as just more of the kind of
speculation that Turkel resorts to in order to find consistency in
rather obvious biblical discrepancies.
As my original article continued, it showed that there is no reasonable way to interpret David's comment to Ahimelech about men waiting for him in an "appointed place" other than just one facet of an elaborate lie that he wove in order to get Ahimelech's help.
WMWD
Furthermore, David also asked Ahimelech to give him a sword or spear (v:8), and Ahimelech gave him the sword of the giant Goliath, which was taken to the tabernacle after David had killed Goliath with a stone hurled from a sling (vs:8-9). That David even requested food and weapons from Ahimelech was strange indeed if he knew that he was going to link up with a contingent that Jonathan had sent to help him in his flight from Saul. If Jonathan had sent such a contingent, it would surely have left with food and weapons, and David would have known this. Why then would he have risked exposure by going to Ahimelech for food and weapons if he had known that both would probably be available when he linked up with the men Jonathan had sent to help him?As the story continues, we find more evidence that the writer didn't just think that no men were with David when he went to Ahimelech for help but that he also didn't know of any contingent of men waiting to meet David in an "appointed place," for after telling about Goliath's sword that Ahimelech gave to David, the writer said, "David rose and fled that day for fear of Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath" (v:10).
Till:
Before I continue quoting my article, which analyzed
the texts after the incident at Nob in order to show that David was
still alone in his flight, I'll put to rest a couple of Turkel's other
quibbles.
Turkel:
It is supposed that if men were sent from Jonathan,
they already would have had food and weapons with them and there would
be no need to ask for any. One wonders whether Farrell thinks that
ancient people left food and weapons just lying around. Food was
precious and carefully measured and guarded. Weapons were at a premium
as well. There is no basis for thinking any contingent would have food
and weapons with them already, or else only carried enough to get them
to David quickly -- Saul surely wasn't opening the coffers for any
large group with recognizable or possible allies of David.
Till:
Where did Turkel get the idea that I was saying that food and weapons
were just "lying around"? The fundamentalist argument [from silence] is
that David was alone when he quickly left Jonathan after their meeting
in the field but that Jonathan, knowing David would need help, sent a
contingent of men to catch up with him. If this indeed happened, we
could hardly imagine that Jonathan would have sent them on their way
without weapons or that David would have been stupid enough to think
that the men waiting for him would be unarmed and unequipped with food
rations. Turkel's scenario envisions the men sent to link up with David
rushing off without taking weapons and food with them, but that is just
another how-it-could-have-been scenario that is too unlikely to warrant
serious consideration.
Turkel [summarizing Till]:
The passage goes on to say that David fled for Gath, and it mentions no
one else.
Turkel:
Apparently Fundy Farrell still hasn't learned the
language of representation in Hebrew thought -- I suppose we should
also suppose that Pilate personally scourged Jesus (John 19:1).
Till:
Ah, I wondered how long it would take Turkel to get to his favorite
theme song, i. e.,
if Till just knew more about "Hebrew thought...." If he thinks that a
solution to this problem can be found in "Hebrew thought," perhaps he
will tell us if he thinks that Hebrews were so stupid in their thinking
about military planning that they would rush off on a mission without
taking food and weapons with them.
Furthermore, Turkel's analogy with the scourging of Jesus is a false one. I'm sure Turkel would agree that if this incident happened, Pilate didn't personally lift a finger against Jesus. Pilate would have scourged him via agency without personally participating in the act. However, when the text says that David fled to Gath, it was obviously not describing an act that was done via agency. David personally fled to Gath, and if there were men with him at the time--an assumption without evidence--they participated in the flight, but the flight would not have been an act that was done only by David's agents, which David himself did not participate in. David himself would have also been in the flight.
To have a case, Turkel needs to find some textual indication of men who were with David, but he can't find it. Hence, he is arguing that men were with David although they weren't specifically mentioned. Such silence in a lengthy narration is too unlikely to deserve serious consideration. I challenge him to find a biblical passage that narrates an extended story of a person, with others traveling in his company, that refers to only the one person over a space of 58 verses of narration. If he could produce such a text, it would give more credence to his speculative solutions. As I will show later, as soon as David was joined by others, the narrator of David's story immediately began to make references to the others, a fact that supports the view that no references were made to men with David before this point in the story because there were no men to refer to.
Turkel [summarizing Till]:
Farrell supposes that Dave would
not have been afraid of the king of Achish with a contingent of men
with him, and would have "commanded some respect" from the city.
Turkel:
Sure, if the contingent numbered in the thousands, but no one argues
that. Five or ten would command no respect and would be the right size
for an escape party that didn't want to be noticed, and will still have
reason to be fearful if things went wrong. Farrell can't seem to
moderate his imagination.
Till:
The "five or ten," of course, are just numbers that Turkel pulled out
of the air, but he cannot find a single textual reference to these men.
The "suggested" reference in 1 Samuel 21:2-5 has been discussed and
shown to be part of an elaborate lie that David wove in order to get
Ahimelech's help. Let's take a look at this passage.
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 Yahweh, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
In answering Ahimelech's question, David made two assertions: (1) He was on a secret mission for the king that no one was supposed to know about. (2) Men were waiting for him in an appointed place. Now obviously, number (1) was a lie, and I don't think that even Turkel would try to deny that it was, so the fact that David's first assertion was a lie gives reason to suspect that his second assertion was also a lie, which was part of an elaborate story that he was telling Ahimelech in order to get help.
A second reference that David made to these "men" is sufficient to give the coup de grace to Turkel's attempt to make the second part of David's answer the truth, even though the first part was a lie. When Ahimelech expressed concern about whether the men with David were sexually "clean" at the time, 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?" David, however, had left Jonathan in haste and had journeyed only a short distance to Nob. If men had already been sent to rendezvous with him, they too would have been sent in haste, so how could David have guaranteed that these men were sexually "clean" at the time? The type of sexual purity that David was assuring to Ahimelech could have been present in the men only if they had known far enough in advance to plan for the mission and abstain from sexual activity.
I quoted the NRSV above where David said, "Indeed women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition," but the Masoretic text literally says, "A woman has been kept from us yesterday and the third day since I came out." Turkel is an expert in Hebrew and Hebrew thought, so he should be able to check this himself. This literal reading has been reflected in some translations.
KJV: And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy.... NKJV Then David answered the priest, and said to him, "Truly, women have been kept from us about three days since I came out,. And the vessels of the young men are holy...." ASV And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days; when I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy.... Amplified Bible And David told the priest, Truly women have been kept from us in these three days since I came out, and the food bags and utensils of the young men are clean....
I'll anticipate a possible rebuttal point from Turkel. The word shilshom [triple, three days, day before yesterday] was at times used in the sense of "heretofore," as in Exodus 5:14.
5:14 And the officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick both yesterday and to day, as heretofore [shilshom]?
So we have again the problem of linguistic homographs [words spelled and pronounced alike with different meanings], but there is a good reason to think that this word as used by David in 1 Samuel 21:5 was intended to convey the sense of three days, because a three-day abstinence from sexual activity was sometimes indicated in the Old Testament in order for men to be "clean." If you can believe it, the following conversation between Moses and Yahweh occurred on Mount Sinai prior to the giving of the ten commandments.
Exodus 19:9 Then Yahweh said to Moses, "I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after." When Moses had told the words of the people to Yahweh, 10 Yahweh said to Moses: "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and prepare for the third day, because on the third day Yahweh will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, 'Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. 13 No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows; whether animal or human being, they shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain." 14 So Moses went down from the mountain to the people. He consecrated the people, and they washed their clothes. 15 And he said to the people, "Prepare for the third day; do not go near a woman."
David, of course, had not been on the run three days at this time, unless he had crawled from Gibeah to Nob. Gibeah was about three and a half miles north of Jerusalem, and Nob was within "fist-shaking" distance of the hill of Jerusalem. If his assurance to Ahimlech was intended to mean that he and his "men" had been sexually "clean" for three days, Ahimelech wouldn't necessarily have understood this to mean that they had been traveling for three days but that in anticipation of the mission, they had abstained from sexual activity in order to prepare themselves for the trip. Regardless of what time period was meant, whether three days or a shorter period of time, the fact that David was telling Ahimelech that his men were sexually "clean" is proof that this was just a part of an elaborate lie, because David's departure had been sudden, and these "men" (if they were real) could not have had time to purify themselves sexually. David fabricated these men waiting for him in an "appointed place." That is the only reasonable interpretation of the statement.
Turkel doesn't have to take my word for this. Let him consult some of those scholars whose "lifeblood" has been biblical research. I'll be glad to quote some of them on this issue.
So everything that David said to Ahimelech was obviously part of an elaborate tale that David made up in order to increase his chances of getting Ahimelech's help. Without throwing common sense to the wind, Turkel cannot construe 1 Samuel 21:1-5 into a "suggestion" that men were with David. In all of the other verses that narrated David's flight from Gibeon to Nob and on to Gath, there wasn't the slightest hint of men who were with David, so Turkel's "solution" is reduced to nothing but pure speculation made for no other reason except to force harmony in the Bible.
Turkel [again summarizing Till]:
It is noted that the king of Achish mentions no one other than David.
Till:
No, "it" was noted that Achish, the king of Gath, mentioned no
one other than David. Achish
was the king's name, and Gath was the name of his city. This gaffe
suggests that Turkel may not be too familiar with the details of this
story that he is trying to make consistent with Mark 2:26, because this
king named Achish was mentioned several times in the chapters in 1
Samuel that told of David's days as a guerrilla marauder under the
protection of king Achish. Maybe Turkel's admirers will want to give
second thoughts to just how reliable these how-it-could-have-been
scenarios are, since they are coming from someone whose familiarity
with the story in question seems to be a little deficient.
Turkel:
Well, why should he? Farrell needs to explain
unequivocally why these men should have been mentioned. Did they do
anything worth beans while there? Is the author obliged to remind us
for the sake of people who can't think their way through?
Till:
Another look at the passage that tells of David's layover in Gath
should show that the silence of this text, combined with the failure to
mention men with David anywhere else, is sufficient to conclude that no
one was with David at the time. In quoting the passage, I will
emphasize key words in bold print.
1 Samuel 21:10 David rose and fled that day from Saul; he went to King Achish of Gath. 11 The servants of Achish said to him, "Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances, 'Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands'?" 12 David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of King Achish of Gath. 13 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. 14 Achish said to his servants, "Look, you see the man is mad; why then have you brought him to me? 15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?"
It does seem strange that in the narration of this event in Gath, nothing at all was said about the contingent of "five or ten" who were with David at the time. The text used only the singular pronouns he and his in reference to David, and in quoting what Achish said about the "madman" at the gate of his city, he referred to David as "the man" or "this fellow." In asking if "this fellow" should come into his house, we have the most telling part of this narrative in terms of whether David was alone or with a contingent of "five or ten." If he had had such a contingent, why wouldn't Achish have said something like, "Shall this fellow come into my house? Let his friends see to him"?
This point was discussed at length in my article, but Turkel in his typical fashion didn't let his readers see it. I won't bother to quote it, but I do want readers to see an additional textual analysis to show that after David left Gath and went to the cave of Adullam, the text specifically states that he was joined by about "four hundred" people. This is the first reference that the narrator of this tale made to others besides David, and thereafter, as his narration continued, he made repeated references to those who were with David.
WMWD:
After chapter 21 closed with Achish and his servants discussing "the man" and "this fellow," the next chapter finally mentioned men who joined David, but this was well after he had stopped in Nob to ask Ahimelech for help.22:1-2 David left there [Gath] and escaped to the cave of Adullam; when his brothers and all his father's house heard of it, they went down there to him. 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. Those who were with him numbered about four hundred.So apparently concerned about his security, David left Gath, at which time he was joined by others, and after this point in his flight from Saul, the Bible writer made frequent references to "men" who were with David. David survived in Philistia as a guerrilla marauder, and as the writer told of these exploits, he made frequent references to "David's men," "David and his men," or "the men of David" (23:3, 4, 5, 13; 24:3, 4, 7, etc., etc., etc.). Isn't it strange that David had had men with him for two chapters, who were never mentioned in the narrative, but as soon as 400 men joined him in 22:1-2, the writer suddenly couldn't get enough of referring to the men who were with David?
Let's notice too that the second verse in this chapter (quoted above) says that David was joined at the cave of Adullam by (1) everyone that was in distress, (2) everyone who was in debt, and (3) everyone who was discontented. Still with all of the everyones in these three categories, David's troop at this time numbered only "about four hundred." So if David had had men with him before he arrived at the cave of Adullam, they certainly couldn't have been anywhere close to the contingent of troops that David implied in 21:5 when he was seeking Ahimelech's help. This is just another indication that David was clearly lying to Ahimelech when he said that he had men with him. It also explains why David asked for only five loaves of bread. Not having any men at all with him, he had had no need for a larger quantity of bread, which would have encumbered him in his flight and undoubtedly molded before he could eat it.
When the biblical account of David's flight from Saul is analyzed section by section, there is no other conclusion to reach except that the writer of this story thought that David was alone until he was joined by other men at the cave of Adullam, which was well after the time that he went to the priest Ahimelech to ask for food and weapons. That conclusion requires also the conclusion that the writer of Mark erred in having Jesus say that David ate the showbread and also gave some of it to the men with him, because there were no men with David. Whoever wrote this tale [in Mark 2:25ff] had superficially read 1 Samuel 21 and incorrectly interpreted David's lie to mean that he had men waiting for him at an appointed place.
Despite all the textual evidence that supports this conclusion, dyed-in-the-wool inerrantists will still insist that there is no inconsistency in this matter. "If Jesus said that David had men with him," they will say, "that's good enough for me, so he had men with him whether the story in the Old Testament mentioned them or not." This, however, is a flagrant resort to [special pleading and] begging the question at issue, because those who so argue are trying to prove biblical inerrancy by assuming biblical inerrancy. By so reasoning, a believer in just any holy book (Book of Mormon, Qur'an, Avesta, etc.) could prove that it is inerrant.
Turkel:
So in other words, its just the usual fluff from Farrell the former
fundy. :-)
Till:
In a personal message to me, Turkel indicated that
responding to any reply that I wrote to his "Trick or Treat" article
was low on his priorities. I can understand why it would be, but he may
consider the publication of my reply a challenge for him to come forth
and debate this issue in a point-by-point fashion. I'd like to see him
defend his Abiathar "solution" and his claim that men were with David
even though the Old Testament text didn't specifically say so.
I'll be interested to see if Turkel adds to his article a link to this rebuttal.
As for his comment about "Farrell the former fundy," I'll
remind him
that I am not the one who believes in ancient superstitions about
talking animals, gods and angels who routinely chatted with people, men
walking unharmed through a fiery furnace, people rising from the dead,
and such like. If a rational rejection of such fantasies as these makes
me a "fundy," I'm so glad to be a fundy.
