1 Samuel 13:1

Thanks for the great question. The Bible does contain things that literally do not add up. My view is that these instances reflect corruptions of the text. And they pretty much do not alter the gist of what is being said.

Secondly some, but probably not all, can be interpreted in a way that makes the difficulty disappear.

So my view that the Bible is the inspired Word of God is not challenged by the existence of apparent errors in the text. And my view that God superintended the transmission of the text means that the text we have today is trustworthy and reliable, even though it includes "insignificant" corruptions that do not alter the actual message of God.

 

Here is another one that is different

1 Samuel 13:1 (ESV)
1 Saul lived for one year and then became king, and when he had reigned for two years over Israel,


Acts 13:21 (KJV)
21 And afterward they desired a king: and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of forty years.


Maybe someone who has studied the original languages might be able to shed some light on this.

Where I would be concerned is if it dealt with a major theological issue

 

We may not have the EXACT words of the originals, but I believe we have the Authentic Voice of God preserved in the CT, TR and Majority text. Like Van said, I have full faith God protected his message. No doctrine changes in any textual issue we encounter.


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After reading the NET's footnote, the NET makes the most sense

 

The NET does have a great footnote. I have no issue with what NET says, and still maintaining the inerrancy of Scripture. I can see it being a problem though for people who believe the English Bible(s) we have are word for word inerranant (KJVOism).

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*I was able to copy the footnote ....hopefully it will paste well....

[https://net]1 tc The MT does not have “thirty.” A number appears to have dropped out of the Hebrew text here, since as it stands the MT (literally, “a son of a year”) must mean that Saul was only one year old when he began to reign! The KJV, attempting to resolve this, reads “Saul reigned one year,” but that is not the normal meaning of the Hebrew text represented by the MT. Although most LXX mss lack the entire verse, some Greek mss have “thirty years” here (while others have “one year” like the MT). The Syriac Peshitta has Saul’s age as twenty-one. But this seems impossible to harmonize with the implied age of Saul’s son Jonathan in the following verse. Taking into account the fact that in v. 2 Jonathan was old enough to be a military leader, some scholars prefer to supply in v. 1 the number forty (cf. ASV, NASB). The present translation (“thirty”) is a possible but admittedly uncertain proposal based on a few Greek mssand followed by a number of English versions (e.g., NIV, NCV, NLT). Other English versions simply supply ellipsis marks for the missing number (e.g., NAB, NRSV).