Why Your Footnotes Disagree

Open Deuteronomy 32:8 in an ESV or NRSV and you read that God fixed the borders of the peoples "according to the number of the sons of God." Open an older translation and it says "sons of Israel."
That is not a translator's preference. It is a decision about which manuscript to follow. The Masoretic Text reads sons of Israel. The Septuagint and two Dead Sea Scroll fragments read sons of God - and the newer translations follow them.
Everything covered in this series lands on that one line. Text-families, the value of the scrolls, the weight of the Greek. And the payoff is not academic: with "sons of God" the verse describes nations allotted to divine beings, and Psalm 82 becomes the trial of those same beings.
So when you see a footnote saying "Dead Sea Scrolls" or "Septuagint", that is textual criticism doing its work in front of you.
Scripture links:
- Deuteronomy 32:8-9 - "according to the number of the sons of God."
- Psalm 82:1 - "God has taken his place in the divine council."
- 2 Timothy 3:16 - "All Scripture is breathed out by God."
Read the footnotes. They are not filler.