1 Samuel 13:1, the king who was one year old
1 Samuel 13:1 says Saul was one year old because it translates the Hebrew as written; the alternative treats the age number as missing. The later Greek tradition fills the gap with thirty, while Codex Vaticanus omits the verse.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
The APB translation committee's printed text retains the age expression: "Saul was one year old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel for two years." The translation presents one year old directly in the sentence and continues with the statement about Saul's reign.
The argument for each reading
If you translate what is written
The Masoretic Text reads בן שנה, rendered as a year old. Translating that wording preserves the age expression that stands in the Hebrew text. It also keeps the difficulty visible: the regnal formula appears to call for an age number that is missing. A translation that prints one year old therefore has a concrete textual basis, even though the resulting statement is puzzling.
This approach does not require choosing a replacement number. Codex Vaticanus omits the verse entirely, while the later Greek tradition gives thirty. Neither response changes the wording preserved in the Masoretic Text. The case for retaining one year old rests on translating that wording without filling the apparent gap.
If you patch the number
The case for a missing number begins with the formula itself. The Masoretic Text has the structure of a statement giving Saul's age when he became king, but its wording yields a year old. Treating the number as lost explains why a familiar kind of age statement produces this difficulty.
The Greek witnesses show two different responses. Codex Vaticanus omits the whole verse. The later Greek tradition gives thirty as Saul's age, providing a number where the Hebrew appears incomplete. That reading offers a concrete way to fill the gap and accounts for thirty in modern Bibles. The uncertainty remains substantial: recognizing an apparent loss does not establish which number once occupied the place. Printing thirty adopts the later Greek tradition's repair.
Saul's age at accession remains uncertain in this comparison. The Hebrew wording suggests a gap, and the later Greek tradition offers thirty, but these witnesses do not establish the missing number. The age question does not change the following account in 1 Samuel 13:2, where Saul chooses three thousand men from Israel.
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 from the sources linked above.