Variant Exceptions

The UPDV Bible generally follows the recommendations of the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project (HOTTP), Critique textuelle de l'Ancien Testament (CTAT), and the United Bible Societies (UBS) apparatus. The following entries document some of the instances where the UPDV has followed a different reading than the primary recommendation of these critical projects. Each entry is organized by book. Additional departures are documented only in the footnotes at the relevant verses.

For Gospel decisions that cite the reconstructed baseline gospel text as *Ev, see The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev).

🔗Gospel Variant Exceptions

Source-history note: for Gospel entries that invoke *Ev or the reconstructed baseline/source-history policy, the UPDV distinguishes direct patristic attestation, modern reconstruction, and source-critical inference. Harnack's verse-by-verse data, BeDuhn's and Roth's cautious reconstructions, and Klinghardt's and Vinzent's broader source-history models are weighed as related but not identical kinds of evidence. This matters especially where Mark is involved: Mark is not treated as an untouchable primitive bedrock, but a Markan exclusion must still be labeled as source-composition inference when no surviving Greek or versional witness omits the unit.

Matthew 1:16 — See footnote at this verse. The Greek followed is based on the textual apparatus mentioned there. However it is styled to NA28 for conjunctions and omits the intervening dialog by the speaker. See The Book of Matthew for full discussion.

Matthew 7:22 — See footnote at this verse. The Critical Text was not certain (Level C) of its choice of the reading "works" instead of "children." The UPDV Bible has chosen "children" due to the similarity of the words in Hebrew and Aramaic. It is easy to see how they would be confused by a translator from one of those languages into Greek. In Greek however, they are quite different and would not likely be mistaken for one another. Compare Luke 7:35 which also has the reading "children."

Synoptic Temptation Narrative — Canonical Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13 are excluded under the reconstructed baseline gospel text (*Ev) policy. Klinghardt reports that the whole Luke 3:1b-4:13 block was missing in *Ev, including the temptation story in all three Synoptic forms; Roth likewise lists Luke 4:1-13 among attested verses not present in the reconstructed text. John's opening day-chain (John 1:29, 1:35, 1:43; 2:1) supplies the convergence control: it moves from the Baptist's testimony to disciples already following Jesus and the Cana wedding without room for a forty-day wilderness interval. This is a category-A override of the entire surviving canonical manuscript tradition. See The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev).

Matthew 4:12 timing clause and 4:18-22 — In reconstructed Matthew, the UPDV no longer prints the phrase "when he heard that John was delivered up" from canonical Matthew 4:12 or the shoreline call scene in canonical Matthew 4:18-22. This is a reconstructed-Matthew/source-history decision, not a claim that surviving Matthew manuscripts directly omit those words. The decision follows the same chronology control as Mark 1:14, 16-20: John 1:35-42 places Andrew and Simon's first encounter with Jesus during John the Baptist's public ministry, and John 3:24 says John had not yet been cast into prison while Jesus and John were both active. See Matthew Chapter 3, Matthew Chapter 4, and The Calling of the Disciples.

Synoptic Temple Action — The UPDV prints the temple action in John 2:13-22 and does not print the Synoptic passion-week placements: Mark 11:15-19, Luke 19:45-46, and the corresponding reconstructed Matthew passion-week block (canonical Matthew 21:12-13 plus the Mark 11:19 departure seam). This is a source-history judgment about narrative placement, not a claim that surviving Greek or versional witnesses directly omit these units.

The issue is the real John/Synoptic placement collision: Daise notes that the Synoptics place the incident near the end of Jesus' ministry while John places it at the beginning, treats placement and source pedigree as the controlling questions for Jesus research, and ultimately argues that John moved the episode forward by reworking a Synoptic source; Culpepper surveys the beginning/end/two-cleansing options, judges two historical temple scenes unlikely, and ultimately concludes that the Temple cleansing more likely occurred late in Jesus' ministry and was moved to the beginning by John for thematic reasons; Murphy-O'Connor supplies a published case for early placement, arguing that if his hypothesis is correct Jesus' action against the money changers "must be placed very early in his career" and that confidence in the Synoptic final-week placement rests on an "unproven assumption"; and Kierspel shows how John 2:13-22 is integrated into John 2-4 with the Samaritan-woman scene around the replacement of physical worship centers by Jesus himself.

On that evidentiary balance—John's structurally integral placement, Murphy-O'Connor's published case against simply assuming the Synoptic final-week placement, and the Synoptic chronological unevenness that Mark places the action on the next day while Matthew and Luke move directly from the entry or city lament into the temple action (Mark 11:11-15; Matthew 21:10-12; Luke 19:41-45)—the UPDV retains John's early temple action and treats the Synoptic passion-week placements as secondary narrative/source placement of the same temple-action tradition. See Murphy-O'Connor, "Jesus and the Money Changers (Mark 11:15-17; John 2:13-17)," Revue Biblique 107.1 (2000): 53, 55; Daise, "Jesus and the Historical Implications of John's Temple Cleansing," in Jesus Research: The Gospel of John in Historical Inquiry (2019), ch. 10; Culpepper, "John 2:20, 'Forty-Six Years,'" in the same volume, ch. 6; and Kierspel, "'Dematerializing' Religion: Reading John 2-4 as a Chiasm," Biblica 89.4 (2008): 526-54.

Mark 1:14, 16-20 — Excluded under the reconstructed baseline/source-history policy as a source-composition bundle, not as a direct Greek manuscript or versional omission. The surviving Greek witnesses preserve the shoreline call scene, and NA28 prints the full sequence. The UPDV treats John's chronology as controlling here: John 1:35-42 places Andrew and Simon's first encounter with Jesus during John the Baptist's public ministry, and John 3:24 explicitly says John had not yet been cast into prison while Jesus and John were both active. The phrase "after John was delivered up" in Mark 1:14, the shoreline call in 1:16-20, and the dependent plural seams in 1:21 and 1:29 are therefore treated together. The text resumes at Jesus' Capernaum synagogue entry in 1:21. See The Calling of the Disciples and The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev).

Mark 6:17-29 — Excluded under the reconstructed baseline/source-history policy as a source-composition decision, not as an extant Greek-manuscript or versional omission claim. The UPDV treats the Herodias imprisonment, banquet, dance, oath, platter, execution, and burial flashback as a pre-canonical Markan expansion from the shorter baseline notice preserved in Mark 6:14-16: Herod hears of Jesus' fame and says, "John, whom I beheaded, he is risen." Klinghardt reports that *Ev knows John's name, that he was a baptizer, that he had disciples, and that he "was beheaded by 'King' Herod," but that "all further information about him is missing in *Ev"; he then says pre-canonical Mark extracted both John's detention and the Herodias execution account from that brief beheading notice (Oldest Gospel, Part I, p. 388). The UPDV therefore prints 6:17 as an omitted block and resumes at the apostles' return in 6:30. See The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev).

Luke 3:19-20 — Excluded under the reconstructed baseline/source-history policy as a source-composition seam, not as an extant Greek-manuscript or versional omission claim. Luke 3:19-20 front-loads John's detention by Herod before Jesus' baptism; the UPDV treats that notice as dependent on the same expanded Herodias/detention tradition excluded at Mark 6:17-29. The running text therefore moves from John's preaching summary in 3:18 to the baptism scene in 3:21. The brief beheading notice remains later in Luke 9:7-9, where Herod says, "John I beheaded." See The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev).

Mark 14:12-16 — Excluded under the reconstructed baseline/source-history policy as a critically inferred structural absence at the source-composition layer, not as a direct manuscript or versional omission. The surviving Greek and versional witnesses preserve the unit, so this decision works upstream of the extant manuscript tradition. Under this source-history decision, canonical Mark is not treated as automatically prior to the baseline gospel tradition; the Passover preparation scene is treated as a redactional expansion that supplies an explicit day/sacrifice preparation anchor parallel to Luke 22:7-13, and the UPDV resumes Mark at the evening meal in verse 17. See The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev).

Mark 14:28 — Excluded as a secondary insertion. Many scholars (Bultmann, Lohmeyer, Humphrey) regard this verse ("But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee") as intrusive to its context, breaking the flow between the scattering prophecy of v. 27 and Peter’s response in v. 29. It was composed in Greek to provide a preceding prophecy for the prospective reading of 16:7. Because the prospective reading of 16:7 reflects a translation fork from the original Aramaic tradition (see Mark 16:7 below), 14:28 has no basis in the original narrative.

Mark 16:7 — The standard Greek text reads prospectively: "he goes before you into Galilee" (προάγει ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν). The UPDV adopts the retrospective reading ("Remember what he told you while he was still in Galilee") based on the Aramaic tradition behind the text.

The Aramaic root qdm (קדם) carries both a spatial sense ("to go before, precede") and a temporal sense ("previously, beforehand") — both widely attested throughout the Targum literature. The divergence between Mark 16:7 (prospective) and Luke 24:6 (retrospective: "remember how he spoke to you when he was yet in Galilee") is best explained as two independent Greek translations of a common Aramaic oral tradition, where the translator’s reading of the ambiguous verb was tipped by the preposition on "Galilee": ל (to) yielded the spatial reading, ב (in) the temporal. Luke 24:6 preserves the original retrospective meaning.

The Syriac Peshitta (5th century) independently confirms the retroversion: translating from Greek back into Syriac, the Peshitta renders προάγω as qdm (ܩܳܕ݂ܶܡ) at Mark 14:28 and 16:7, confirming the natural equivalence between the two. Within the same chapter, the Peshitta of Mark 14:8 uses qdm temporally (qadmat, "she did beforehand"), while 14:28 uses it spatially. This demonstrates that the single root qdm seamlessly covers both Greek verbs found in Mark: προέλαβεν at 14:8 (temporal) and προάγω at 14:28 (spatial). The fact that the temporal sense of qdm maps to a non-προάγω verb is entirely consistent with Luke’s use of μνήσθητε for the same temporal sense at 24:6.

The prospective reading also creates significant historical, narrative, and logistical difficulties:

• No text in the earliest sources narrates the disciples obeying a command to travel to Galilee. Matthew 28:16-20 and John 21, which do place appearances in Galilee, are later additions not included in the UPDV. No church father references the journey.
• Paul’s appearance tradition (1 Cor 15:5-8) contains no Galilee geography despite being received directly from the eyewitnesses. The early church was Jerusalem-centered from the beginning (Gal 1-2).
• The prospective reading requires the scattered disciples and grieving women to walk 80-90 miles to Galilee two days after an execution. The pilgrimage calendar (Passover to Pentecost, 50 days) would require three crossings of that distance in under seven weeks.
• Paul’s "500 at once" (1 Cor 15:6) is far easier to explain in Jerusalem during Passover, when thousands of Galilean pilgrims were already gathered, than in scattered Galilee villages after the festival.
• Mark’s own narrative arc — three passion predictions in Galilee (8:31, 9:31, 10:33), each met with explicit misunderstanding — is completed by the retrospective reading ("now you understand what he told you") rather than broken by a new unfulfilled promise.

Luke 3:23 — The phrase "as was supposed" is restored to "known as." The underlying Aramaic has two meanings; the Greek translator chose the wrong one, adding a nuance of doubt ("it was said to be, but wasn't really true") that was not intended. The word "began" (ἀρχόμενος) also appears to be a mistranslation of the Aramaic for "to be." See The Gospel of Luke for full discussion.

Luke 11:13 — The reading "good things" is restored in place of "Holy Spirit," based on the parallel in Matthew. The Greek word for "good" (ἀγαθόν) was likely misread as "holy" (ἅγιον), after which "spirit" was added to complete the phrase. See The Gospel of Luke.

Luke 11:42 — The UPDV reads "dill" instead of "rue," correcting a likely misread of the original Aramaic (שברא for שבתא). Rue was not subject to tithing according to the Mishnah. See Arndt, Danker, and Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 810. See The Gospel of Luke.

Luke 22:7-13 — Excluded under the reconstructed baseline gospel text (*Ev) policy as a critically inferred structural absence. This is not a claim that the whole block is directly attested absent. Epiphanius Scholion 61 supplies a single late, loose notice at verse 8, with "Peter and the rest" rather than Luke's "Peter and John," and is discounted as a secure unit-presence anchor. Roth and BeDuhn classify the surrounding material as unattested while preserving the 22:8 notice; Klinghardt cautiously reconstructs the unit as probably present, so the modern reconstructions are weighed rather than treated as agreement on absence. Qualified silence in Tertullian's Against Marcion 4.40, source-critical tethering to the canonical Markan preparation scene, and the chronological pressure created by Luke's explicit day/sacrifice preparation anchor support removal under the case-by-case policy. The corresponding Markan preparation scene is now also excluded at Mark 14:12-16 under a separate Mark source-history decision. See The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev) and The Gospel of Luke.

Luke 22:16-18 — Excluded under the reconstructed baseline gospel text (*Ev) policy. Verse 16 is directly attested absent by Epiphanius; verses 17-18 are removed with it under the policy's composite-seam rule, not because they are directly attested absent word-for-word. Early witnesses show incompatible repairs at the Last Supper cup/bread sequence: Codex Bezae and Old Latin witnesses omit verses 19b-20, Old Syriac witnesses relocate or redistribute the cup sayings, and apparatus/secondary reports include witnesses with only verses 19-20. These repairs converge on the existence and location of the seam while disagreeing about the exact repair. Removing verses 16-18 leaves Luke's bread-then-cup institution sequence (22:19-20) aligned with Mark 14:22-24 and the Pauline tradition in 1 Corinthians 11:23-25. See The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev) and The Gospel of Luke.

John 1:1 — The UPDV translates λόγος as "Speech" rather than "Word," reflecting the Aramaic מלתא (memra). See The Gospel of John and The Speech of God: John 1:1 and the Aramaic Memra.

John 3:3, 7 — The Greek text uses ἄνωθεν with "be born" in both verses. In Greek the word can mean either "again/anew" or "from above," and Nicodemus's reply in verse 4 hears the temporal sense: "Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb?" Syriac Sinaiticus and the Peshitta both render verse 3 with ܡܢ ܕܪܫ / ܡܢ ܕܪܝܫ, "from the beginning/anew"; this supports the UPDV's verse 3 wording, "born all over again." The same Peshitta idiom is echoed in Galatians 4:9 (ܘܡܢ ܕܪܝܫ, "and from the beginning/anew"), Titus 3:5 (ܕܡܘܠܕܐ ܕܡܢ ܕܪܝܫ, "of birth from the beginning/anew"), and 1 Peter 1:3 and 1:23 with birth/begetting verbs (ܐܘܠܕܢ ܡܢ ܕܪܝܫ / ܕܡܢ ܕܪܝܫ ܐܬܝܠܕܬܘܢ); the UPDV mirrors that idiom with "all over again" / "born all over again" in those verses.

Diognetus 2:1 gives a related Greek Christian reception parallel; the UPDV renders the phrase "be born, as it were, a new man all over again" (καὶ γενόμενος ὥσπερ ἐξ ἀρχῆς καινὸς ἄνθρωπος), making the γενόμενος word-family and the temporal ἐξ ἀρχῆς frame visible without using ἄνωθεν. This is not a direct quotation of John and uses γίνομαι rather than γεννάω, but it supports the same new-beginning frame for Christian renewal.

The decisive verse 7 exception is narrower: the UPDV follows Syriac Sinaiticus, which lacks the repeated adverb. The Peshitta does not support that omission, since it repeats ܡܢ ܕܪܝܫ in verse 7; other Syriac witnesses use ܡܢ ܠܥܠ, "from above," there. This is an Aramaic/Syriac retroversion decision, not a Greek-manuscript omission claim or a Peshitta-omission claim. The Syriac witnesses use the spatial idiom in John 3:31. Pierre-Marin Boucher documents the Syriac reception split and cites Lagrange's observation that one cannot assign to ἄνωθεν "un mot araméen qui aurait deux sens" — an Aramaic word with both meanings ("ΓΕΝΗΘΗΝΑΙ ἌΝΩΘΕΝ: La valeur de l'adverbe ἄνωθεν en Jn 3,3 et 7. Ire partie: La réception chrétienne," Revue Biblique 115.2 [2008]: 198). See footnotes at John 3:3 and 3:7.

John 4:14 — Conjecturally reconstructed. The phrase "eternal life" is restored to "living water" based on the Liege Diatessaron, the immediate context (4:10–11), the Old Syriac evidence, and the likelihood of Aramaic confusion. See The Gospel of John.

John 6:27 — Conjecturally reconstructed on similar grounds to John 4:14. See The Gospel of John.

John 7:37–39 — Excluded. Traditional saying in an editorial frame with a Spirit gloss. See The Gospel of John.

John 19:14 — The phrase "it was about the sixth hour" is excluded under the reconstructed baseline gospel text (*Ev) policy as a critically inferred post-*Ev editorial timing notice, not as a direct Greek-manuscript omission. This is not a move to adopt Mark's "third hour" reading in John, nor a claim that *Ev preserves Mark 15:25's third-hour timestamp. The direct *Ev evidence for the passion timing is the sixth-hour darkness: BeDuhn reconstructs *Ev 23:44 as "Now it was already about the sixth hour, and a darkness fell..." after Jesus has been crucified at 23:33; Roth notes that Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.42.5, connects the darkness with the ὥρα ἕκτη, with further attestation from Eznik, Ephrem, and Epiphanius; and Klinghardt likewise reconstructs Jesus crucified before the sixth-hour darkness. John 19:14's sixth-hour notice instead places Jesus still before Pilate at that same hour, aligning the condemnation scene with John's Passover-preparation theology and breaking the baseline passion chronology. The UPDV therefore retains John's "Preparation of the Passover" setting but excludes only the hour notice as a post-*Ev timing layer. Virtually the whole Greek manuscript tradition reads "sixth hour"; the minority Greek "third hour" reading in John is treated as a harmonization to Mark 15:25 rather than as the reading adopted here. See The Reconstructed Baseline Gospel Text (*Ev).

🔗Revelation

Revelation 11:1 — See footnote at this verse. This change was made due to the likelihood of an original Aramaic text being slightly misread. For more information see: Jastrow pages 955–956; Payne Smith p. 361; and C. C. Torrey, The Apocalypse of John (Yale University Press, 1958), p. 120.

Revelation 19:13 — See footnote at this verse. The Greek title is "the Word of God" (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ). UPDV renders this personal title "The Speech of God" for consistency with John's Logos/Memra usage (John 1:1; 1 John 1:1). The divine-warrior setting fits the Memra background rather than counting against it: Aune (WBC 52C on Revelation 19:13) notes Hayward's argument that Targumic Memra theology is probably reflected here, and Ronning connects Revelation 19:13 with Targum Isaiah's warrior/Memra passages (Tg. Isa. 59:17, 19; 63:5; WTJ 69 [2007]: 263-64). See The Speech of God: John 1:1 and the Aramaic Memra.

🔗Old Testament

Exodus 34:24 — See footnote at this verse. See also the note at Deuteronomy 31:11 for the pattern followed.

Deuteronomy 31:11 — See footnote at Exodus 34:24.

Joshua 19:7 — The UPDV Bible follows CTAT's reconstruction of the original text.

Judges 5:30 — The UPDV Bible follows a conjectural restoration noted in Keil and Delitzsch to read "the neck of the queen" instead of "the neck(s) of the spoil."

2 Samuel 4:6 — CTAT prefers the Masoretic reading with C-level confidence. However, due to similar reading in Ezekiel 23:40 along with witnesses of the Greek, Syriac, and Targum, and only a vocalization change required, the UPDV Bible has followed: "and, look, they."

2 Samuel 12:31 — This verse and the parallel passage at 1 Chronicles 20:3 are sometimes translated as the captured inhabitants being subject to various types of torture, such as being hacked with saws and axes or made to pass through a brickkiln. The ancient Greek, Latin, and Targumic witnesses generally read or interpret the passages in this severe direction, while the Syriac tradition is paraphrastic and in 1 Chronicles 20:3 explicitly says that David killed none of them. The UPDV Bible follows a reconstruction in which the captives were assigned to corvée labor with tools. This reconstruction is not directly attested by all ancient witnesses; it rests on re-evaluating the Hebrew parallels, the context, and similar vocabulary elsewhere in the Bible. There are three main parts of these verses which directed the translation:

a) There is a one letter difference between the Hebrew word in 2 Samuel "put [them]" (וישם) and 1 Chronicles "sawed [them]" (וישר). HOTTP rates the Masoretic reading of 1 Chronicles 20:3 (וישר, "and he sawed") with A-level confidence and suggests "and he sawed (them)." HOTTP also notes that Chronicles may reflect a misunderstanding of the 2 Samuel idiom "he placed them in/at the saw," that is, "he forced them to work with saws." The UPDV follows the non-torture sense represented by 2 Samuel, marking the supplied idea with brackets.

b) There is a one letter difference between the Hebrew word in 2 Samuel "axes of iron" (במגזרות הברזל) and 1 Chronicles "saws" (ובמגרות). The UPDV follows the more comprehensive parallel in 2 Samuel and renders "axes" in 1 Chronicles, understanding the repeated "saws" in 1 Chronicles as likely arising from the difficulty of the passage. HOTTP rates the 1 Chronicles reading with C-level confidence and suggests "stone-cutter's saws"; CTAT notes that the textual tradition does not remove the difficulty of the repeated instrument name.

c) Only the passage in 2 Samuel contains "made them serve making bricks." This is sometimes translated as "made them pass through the brickkiln." The difference is due to the verb in Hebrew currently reading העביר (passed through, made to pass). HOTTP rates the Masoretic reading with A-level confidence and suggests "and he sent them to the brickkiln," while noting that העביד (made to serve) may probably represent the original text but is not attested by old textual witnesses. The UPDV follows the conjectural reading because it fits the context and matches similar wording and vocabulary about being made to serve making bricks at Exodus 1:13. Making captives serve in a particular function is similar to that found at Joshua 9:21.

2 Samuel 21:8 — The Masoretic Text reads "Michal"; the UPDV reads "Merab." Every other detail in the verse fits Merab, not Michal: it was Merab, Saul's elder daughter, who was given to Adriel the Meholathite (1 Sam 18:19), whereas Michal was childless to the day of her death (2 Sam 6:23) and was never married to Adriel. "Michal" is the harder reading, retained as original by the principal critical projects; the panel found the ancient witnesses reading "Merab" are best explained as harmonizations to 1 Samuel 18:19, not a separately preserved "Merab" text — so the UPDV does not claim "Merab" is the better-attested reading. It reads "Merab" because the UPDV works upstream of the surviving manuscripts and prints the name the rest of the verse points to — the daughter of Saul married to Adriel — recording the Masoretic "Michal" in the footnote.

Evidence reviewed:

• HOTTP and CTAT both rate this reading {D} (the highest level of uncertainty). CTAT (Barthélemy, vol. 1, pp. 300–301, entry 2 S 21,8B) records the committee's divided vote — "Michal" received one "C" and two "D," "Merab" two "D." Scholarship is genuinely split on which reading is original: Barthélemy, Glück (ZAW 77 [1965]: 73), and Hays ("A Problematic Spouse," ZAW 129 [2017]: 220–233) hold "Michal" the original, harder reading and "Merab" a harmonization to 1 Samuel 18:19, while Driver, McCarter, and Halpern judge "Michal" a copyist's error for an original "Merab." The two camps reconstruct opposite Old Greek readings — CTAT an Old Greek "Michal" (ms B Μιχολ, a recension of Μελχολ), Hays and McCarter an Old Greek "Merab" (Μεροβ), ms B's Μιχολ being a later correction toward the Masoretic in this kaige stretch (where the Antiochene text is the better Old-Greek witness) — but the UPDV's reading does not turn on that question.
• BHS apparatus (note 8b): two Hebrew manuscripts, several Greek manuscripts, the Syriac, and the Targum read "Merab," marked as an assimilation to 1 Samuel 18:19 ("ex 1 S 18,19").
• 4QSamᵃ (DJD XVII, frg. 152) does not preserve the name: only "…[five] sons of" survives on the leather (and only the upper tips of the last two letters). The editors reconstructed "[Merab]" on the stated assumption that the scroll follows the Old Greek, while noting "we cannot be certain of the reading of 4QSamᵃ here." It is therefore not an independent witness for "Merab."
• Targum Jonathan is conflate — "the five sons of Merab whom Michal raised" — combining both names; it reflects an interpretive harmonization, not a "Merab" text.
• Peshitta reads ndb (its form of Merab; the same form stands at 1 Samuel 18:19, where the Hebrew is Merab) yet keeps Michal childless at 2 Samuel 6:23. It was translated from a Hebrew text close to the Masoretic, so its "Merab" is a harmonizing correction.
• Vulgate reads "Michol" (Michal) in Jerome's text and the oldest manuscripts; only a later Spanish manuscript group reads "Merob." The Armenian reads "Merob" but was translated from a Lucianic-type Greek text (it also reads "Esdriel," the Greek form, for Adriel), so it echoes the Lucianic correction rather than witnessing independently.

For the text-critical discussion, see Rebecca Poe Hays, "A Problematic Spouse: A Text-Critical Examination of Merab's Place in 1 Samuel 18:17–19 and 2 Samuel 21:8," ZAW 129.2 (2017): 220–233; Dominique Barthélemy, Critique textuelle de l'Ancien Testament, vol. 1 (OBO 50/1; Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 300–301; P. Kyle McCarter Jr., II Samuel (AB 9; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 439; J. J. Glück, "Merab or Michal," ZAW 77 (1965): 72–81; and Frank Moore Cross, Donald W. Parry, Richard J. Saley, and Eugene Ulrich, Qumran Cave 4.XII: 1–2 Samuel (DJD XVII; Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), 178 (frg. 152).

For related literary and redaction-critical readings that treat "Michal" as a deliberate or developing feature of the text rather than a copyist's slip, see Stanley D. Walters, "Childless Michal, Mother of Five," in The Tablet and the Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo, ed. M. E. Cohen, D. C. Snell, and D. B. Weisberg (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1993), 290–296; Robert Rezetko, "Source and Revision in the Narratives of David's Transfer of the Ark: Text, Language and Story in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13, 15–16" (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2004), 272; and Jeremy M. Hutton, "The Nameless Daughter of Saul," ZAW 135.4 (2023): 531–546. On the portrayal and reception of Michal, see Ellen White, "Michal the Misinterpreted," JSOT 31.4 (2007): 451–464; Michael Avioz, "Josephus' Portrait of Michal," JSQ 18.1 (2011): 1–18; and Robert B. Lawton, "1 Samuel 18: David, Merob, and Michal," CBQ 51 (1989), JSTOR 43717893. And for a modern translation that, like the UPDV, prints "Merab" in the text and footnotes the Masoretic "Michal," see Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019), note at 2 Samuel 21:8.

2 Samuel 21:19 — The Masoretic Text reads that Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath. The UPDV follows HOTTP/CTAT in treating "oregim" ("weavers") in the patronymic as a dittography from the spear description later in the verse and reads "Jari"; it also prints "the brother of Goliath" as a further reconstruction, while preserving "Beth-lehemite" and not inserting the name "Lahmi" from 1 Chronicles 20:5.

This second move goes beyond the ordinary committee recommendation. The extant Samuel witnesses checked for this issue, including the MT/BHS, LXX, Peshitta, and Vulgate, read "Goliath" rather than "the brother of Goliath." The UBS Handbook on 2 Samuel notes that 1 Chronicles 20:5 reads "the brother of Goliath" and that some interpreters explain the Samuel text as defective, but cautions that no such Samuel manuscript has been discovered and that an explanatory footnote is acceptable while the evidence is insufficient for ordinary translation committees to harmonize the verse. The UPDV treats this as a variant exception rather than a simple committee-following reading.

Kaspars Ozolins argues that the difficulty is best explained by accidental scribal oversight, not deliberate harmonization. In his reconstruction, "Beth-lehemite" is original in Samuel, "Lahmi" in Chronicles is a secondary name arising from the similar gentilic, and the key loss in Samuel is "brother of": the complementary distribution of את (the direct object marker) and אחי ("brother of"), plus their visual similarity, makes it plausible that Samuel's present text replaced an original "brother of Goliath" with direct-object "Goliath." Ozolins concludes that this should be seriously considered as a proximate reconstruction of the original text of 2 Samuel 21:19 and the basis for the parallel in 1 Chronicles 20:5. See Kaspars Ozolins, "Killing Goliath? Elhanan the Bethlehemite and the Text of 2 Samuel 21:19," Vetus Testamentum 72, no. 4–5 (2022): 716–733, especially 731–732.

1 Chronicles 4:32 — The UPDV Bible follows CTAT's reconstruction of the original text. The same note as above regarding 2 Samuel 12:31 applies to 1 Chronicles 20:3.

1 Chronicles 20:3 — See note above at 2 Samuel 12:31.

Psalm 2:9 — See footnote at this verse. The UPDV Bible has followed the Hebrew text with different vowel pointing in accordance with the LXX reading.

Psalm 106:20 — See footnote at this verse. Also see Jeremiah 2:11. This verse is on ancient rabbinical lists of euphemisms in the Bible. "Their glory" appears to be a euphemism to avoid directly referencing God in this context. See the discussion in CTAT at Psalm 106:20.

Jeremiah 2:11 — See footnote at this verse. Also see Psalm 106:20. This verse is on ancient rabbinical lists of euphemisms in the Bible. A translation such as "their glory" appears to be a euphemism to avoid directly saying that God could be exchanged for something. "His glory" also seems out of place given the first person surrounding context. See the discussion in CTAT at Psalm 106:20 and the footnote in the text of the Word Biblical Commentary at Jeremiah 2:11.

Jeremiah 22:18 — See footnote at this verse. This reading was followed for reasons which include the following:

a) The Hebrew word for "sister" is similar to one meaning "brotherhood" as in Zechariah 11:14.

b) A lament in this form is nearly always addressed to the person who would be dead. There is no dead woman in the context who would be called "sister."

c) When two phrases are next to each other in a lament, generally the second phrase is either a duplication of the first; a further identification of the first; or an emphasis of the first. In this verse, "my brother" is emphasized as "best brother." And, "lord" is emphasized as "his excellence."

For further reference, see Theodor H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament, page 604. Also see the historical examples in Mark E. Cohen's The Canonical Lamentations of Ancient Mesopotamia. And also see the Syriac at this verse.

Jeremiah 27:1 — See footnote at this verse. The UPDV Bible has followed an optional recommendation in HOTTP.

Jeremiah 28:1 — CTAT indicates the LXX is nearly certain to have the earlier reading, and that the MT appears to have text inserted in this verse at a later time by a secondary source. CTAT still recommends the MT based on textual criticism. However, based on all factors, the UPDV Bible has followed the LXX. See footnote at this verse. See also CTAT.

Ezekiel 27:19 — The UPDV Bible follows CTAT's conjectural restoration of the original text.