Saul said to Ahijah, “Bring the ark of God.” (At that time it was with the Israelites.) – 1 Samuel 14:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 6, 2012): 1 Samuel 14

One of the questions that people seem to like to ask about the Bible is how can we believe in something that is so full of errors. And the idea behind the question seems to be that there are some very significant errors in the Bible that effect the overall message of the Book. The problem is that that is not really the case. Are there errors? Definitely! But we have found no errors that significantly change God’s message to us. What we believe about Salvation, love, heaven and hell and other key issues are consistent over all of the copies of the biblical books that are still in existence. (And the Bible has more ancient copies of it than any other ancient book in history. In fact, the Bible which was completed about 1900 years ago is better attested to and we have more ancient copies of it then we have of the writings William Shakespeare written 400 years ago. We are surer that the messages we find in the Bible reflect the intentions of the original authors than we are that the message found in Othello carries the message and intention of William Shakespeare.) Most of the errors are small errors in the text – or even perceived errors because we have failed to understand the original culture in which the document was written. But the errors do not change in anyway the intended overall message of the Scriptures.

Having said that, this verse seems to contain an error, and then the error is compounded by an explanation. The error is in this comment about the Ark of God. The first problem that we have is that there is absolutely no evidence that the Ark had been removed from Kirjath-jearim where the Ark resided during this period of time. The Ark had been there since the end of the days of Eli. And there is no evidence that Israel had gone to pick it up, nor would they until the days when David would become king and he would try to bring the Ark into Jerusalem – making the City of David both the political and the religious center of Israel. And if they had gone to Kirjath-jearim to get the Ark, there would be no reason to take it back there for David to bring up later. The tabernacle, the place where the Ark belonged, was in Shiloh during the days of Saul. The second problem is that there is no reason for the Ark to be carried into battle against the Philistines. That was how they lost the Ark – and the reason why the Ark was in Kirjath-jearim – in the first place. And it appears that someone in ancient times was looking at this text and realized that it did not really make sense so they compounded the error by adding the statement that the Ark was with the Israelites “at that time.”

We do have an alternate reading to this verse, and it is one that does actually make sense. The alternative reading is found in the Septuagint, a collection of the Hebrew Scriptures translated into Greek just before the birth of Christ. The Septuagint reads that it was ephod of the priest, or the priestly cape, that Israel had with them on that day. The priest would often put on the ephod whenever he inquired of God the path that needed to be taken. And that fits clearly the context of this situation. Saul wanted to inquire of God, and the priest was putting on the ephod and lifting up his hands to make the inquiry.

But, having said all of that, the apparent error of the text in no way changes the intent of the passage. It is still a story about Saul, a priest and the defeating of the Philistines.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 15

Note: The VantagePoint Sermon "Temple Tantrum" from the Series "In the Hands of an Angry God." is now available on the VantagePoint Website - you can find it here.