Saul’s Age & the Math That Doesn’t Add Up. When God Lets the Numbers Blur to Expose the Heart. The opening line of 1 Samuel 13 has long puzzled readers and translators alike: “Saul was … years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel.” Both numbers are missing. The Hebrew Masoretic Text leaves blanks where digits should be. Every translation since has been forced to guess.

The OSB: Returning to the Bible of the Early Church. The Orthodox Study Bible (OSB), first published in its complete form in 2008, is the only major English-language study Bible produced with an explicitly Eastern Orthodox perspective. What distinguishes the OSB from nearly all other modern English Bibles is its use of the Septuagint (LXX) as the basis for the Old Testament, rather than the Hebrew Masoretic Text.

Baruch: Wisdom and Confession in Exile. The Book of Baruch is not found in most Protestant Bibles, but it was part of the Bible used by the early church and remains in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles today. It was written as if coming from Baruch, the scribe and companion of Jeremiah, during the time of exile in Babylon.

Wisdom of Solomon Book Summary: A Hidden Key to Christian Theology. The Wisdom of Solomon (also called The Book of Wisdom) is one of the most theologically rich texts in the Bible of the Early Church. Although it is excluded from most modern Protestant Bibles, this book played a significant role in shaping early Christian thought—especially the writings of Paul and the theology of Jesus as the embodiment of divine wisdom.

Maccabees Summary – The Books They Removed That Explain It All. The Books of the Maccabees (1–4 Maccabees) are some of the most historically and theologically important writings in the Bible—yet many modern Christians have never read them. These books were included in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), the version used by Jesus and the early Church for centuries, and they offer essential context for understanding end-times theology, spiritual endurance, and even the origin

The Septuagint (LXX): The Bible of the Early Church. If you’ve ever seen a tiny “LXX” in the footnotes of your Bible and wondered what it meant, you’ve stumbled onto one of the most important—and misunderstood—parts of biblical history. LXX stands for “Septuagint,” the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It was the Bible used by Jesus, the apostles, and the early church. And yet, many modern Bibles today rely almost entirely on a different text: the Hebrew Maso