1 Thessalonians 2:7, “gentle,” or “little children”?
1 Thessalonians 2:7 has two readings: the apostles were gentle among the Thessalonians, or became infants. One Greek letter separates them, and the nursing mother comparison gives each a different effect.
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 base text reads (nothing). The copies also carry νήπιοι [early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The supplied alternatives describe addition versus absence, rather than replacement of ἤπιοι.”
“The base text reads ἐὰν. The copies also carry the omission [early greek manuscript tradition; later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The stronger early support and plausible simplification favor the default.”
“The base text reads ἤπιοι. The copies also carry νήπιοι [early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. One letter separates gentle from infants and the early copies are split.”
“The base text reads ἐὰν. The copies also carry ἂν [later majority tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The early evidence supports retaining the default, although witness independence is unspecified.”
The APB 4.0 translation committee retained ἤπιοι, gentle. Its decision states: "The base text reads ἤπιοι. The copies also carry νήπιοι [early greek manuscript tradition]; the committee kept the base text. One letter separates gentle from infants and the early copies are split." GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI) served as the first translator; Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic) served as the second translator. The committee’s printed text reads "we became gentle in your midst" and continues with the nursing mother comparison.
The argument for each reading
If “gentle”
The reading ἤπιοι describes the apostles as gentle among the Thessalonians. Tregelles and the Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform print it. Its strongest contextual attraction is the nursing mother comparison: gentleness fits the picture of a mother cherishing her own children. The sentence moves smoothly from the apostles’ conduct to their care for the community.
The spelling also permits an explanation for the alternative. The preceding word ends in ν, and doubling that letter could produce νήπιοι. This possibility supports a case for gentle, although the same position also allows a letter to drop out when copying infants.
If “infants”
The reading νήπιοι describes the apostles as infants or little children among the Thessalonians. Westcott-Hort and Nestle-Aland 28 print it. Nestle-Aland 28 adopts it as the harder reading with strong early support. Its abrupt change of image gives this reading its distinctive force: the apostles become little children before the sentence compares their care to that of a nursing mother.
The spelling permits a copying explanation in this direction too. Since the preceding word ends in ν, dropping a repeated letter could turn infants into gentle. The resulting sentence would have a smoother connection to the nursing mother comparison. That explains how the alternative could arise without settling which wording came first.
The copying explanation works in both directions: a repeated nu could be added or dropped. The editions therefore present a choice that spelling alone cannot settle. The uncertainty concerns how the apostles describe themselves at this point. Both readings retain the nursing mother comparison, and the following verse still speaks of sharing the gospel and their own lives because the Thessalonians had become beloved to them.
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.