“Who’s That Boy?” — Why Saul Doesn’t Recognize David. When the Older Text Removes a Problem the Later Text Creates (1 Samuel 17:55–58). Some textual questions are minor. This is not one of them. In the plain surface flow of many modern translations, Saul watches David go out against Goliath and then asks Abner, “Whose son is this young man?” Abner claims not to know. Saul presses again. David returns with the Philistine’s head, and Saul asks David directly.

Goliath’s Height — Setting the Record Straight. When the Oldest Evidence Disagrees with the Popular Reading (1 Samuel 17:4). Most Christians know the David-and-Goliath story by heart, and many have also heard the traditional detail that Goliath stood “six cubits and a span,” often repeated as nearly ten feet tall. That number has become part of the legend—so familiar that few pause to ask a simple question: is that actually what the oldest biblical evidence says?

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.