1 Samuel 13:1, the king who was one year old
1 Samuel 13:1 says Saul was one year old because Reading A translates בן שנה as written; Reading B holds that the age number has fallen out. The verse leaves every translation facing a gap in a regnal formula.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB's translation committee works blind: it is never told it is translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and it never sees the witnesses above. Since revision 3.5, the places where the manuscripts disagree are decided before translation by three readers, Grok 4.3, GPT-6 Astra, and Claude Fable 5.1, who see the readings and the witnesses by age and class but never a reference or a manuscript name. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
The blind committee’s printed text translates the written wording without a supplied age: “Saul was a year old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel.” No rationale note matches this crux, and the pericope’s audit verdict is clean.
The argument for each reading
If you translate what is written
Reading A keeps faith with the words that stand in the Masoretic Text: בן שנה appears before Saul’s accession, and the committee’s printed translation renders it as a year old. This approach does not repair the sentence before translating it. Its strength is its concreteness: the Hebrew regnal formula is present, and so is the wording that yields Saul was a year old when he became king. The difficulty is also visible in the same witness description. The formula reads as though it should say Saul was a certain number of years old, yet that number is missing. Reading A therefore presents the verse as written, including its striking result, while the following clause gives two years for Saul’s reign.
If you patch the number
Reading B treats the unusual result as evidence of a lost age number in the Hebrew regnal formula. On this account, the formula remains, but the number it should carry has fallen out; a translation may therefore signal or patch that absence rather than render Saul’s age as one. The other witnesses show two different responses to the problem. LXXᴮ omits the verse altogether, while the later Greek tradition supplies τριάκοντα, thirty. That supplied number explains the familiar rendering Saul was thirty years old in modern Bibles. These witnesses do not all give the same solution, so the case is for recognizing a gap, not for treating one supplied number as uncontested.
The supplied evidence does not settle why the Hebrew has this form, whether a number fell out, or whether thirty explains the original wording. The variation changes how Saul’s age at accession is presented. It does not change the statement that he reigned two years over Israel in the committee’s printed verse. No doctrinal conclusion is supplied by this packet.
Common questions
Why does 1 Samuel 13:1 call Saul one year old?
The Masoretic Text reads בן שנה, a year old. The verse’s regnal formula appears to lack the age number it should carry, so translating the written words produces that result.
Why do some Bibles say Saul was thirty years old?
Later Greek tradition reads τριάκοντα, thirty. The packet identifies this as the origin of Saul was thirty years old in modern Bibles.
Is the number missing in 1 Samuel 13:1?
Reading B understands the age number as fallen out. Reading A translates the Hebrew as written. LXXᴮ omits the verse, while later Greek tradition supplies thirty.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited as published scholarly fact with their sources linked above. The page does not declare which reading is original.
The registry gives no verdict
The registry does not say which reading is original. Each page lists the witnesses, shows what the committee did with the same text, and leaves the judgment to the reader.