who before were disobedient, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, while the ship was being built. In it, few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
World English Bible
1 Peter 3:20
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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WEB World English Bible Public Domain ✓ - Modern English
- BSB Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
- LSV Literal Standard Version A modern, highly literal translation (2020) · CC BY-SA 4.0
- ULB Unlocked Literal Bible An open-licensed literal translation produced for translators · CC BY-SA 4.0
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- MSB Majority Standard Bible A modern translation of the Majority/Byzantine text — the Berean counterpart to the critical-text BSB · Public Domain
- TCENT Text-Critical English New Testament A modern reasoned-eclectic New Testament (2022) · CC BY 4.0
- F35 Family 35 New Testament Wilbur Pickering's Byzantine-priority New Testament, with text-critical commentary notes · CC BY-SA 4.0
- OJB Orthodox Jewish Bible A Messianic-Jewish English Bible using transliterated Hebrew names and terms · CC BY 4.0
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- KJV King James Version Public Domain
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- GNV Geneva Bible (1599) The Reformation-era study Bible that preceded the King James · Public Domain
- DRA Douay-Rheims (1899) An English Catholic translation from the Latin Vulgate · Public Domain
- YLT Young's Literal Translation An extremely literal 19th-century rendering · Public Domain
- DBY Darby Bible A literal 19th-century translation by J. N. Darby · Public Domain
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- LEESER Isaac Leeser Tanakh (1853) The first Jewish English translation of the Hebrew Bible (1853, Old Testament only) · Public Domain
- KJVCP KJV Cambridge Paragraph Bible David Norton's critical Cambridge edition of the King James Version, set in paragraphs · Public Domain
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Science (1)
Historical claims about the natural world, weighed against the scientific record.
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The entire human population was once reduced to eight people, and all living humans descend from them.
Biology · 1 Peter 3:20
The scientific record: Population genetics estimates a minimum effective human ancestral population on the order of about 10,000 individuals. (NIH)
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
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Where did Jesus go when he died?
Luke 23:43 has Jesus promise the repentant criminal that they will be together in paradise that very day, implying Jesus went to paradise. The Apostles' Creed has Jesus descend into hell, a tradition grounded in 1 Peter 3:18-20 and 1 Peter 4:6.
Critical scholarship: Leans toward a genuine contradiction.
More on this question
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Other verses examined for the same kind of question or claim
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
Cite this page
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"1 Peter 3:20 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/1-peter/3/20?version=WEB (retrieved 26 August 2026).