in Genesis 10, where the Hebrew text has seventy nations but the early Greek translation (the Septuagint) has seventy-two names. In Numbers 11:24–25 the Spirit falls on seventy elders and then on Eldad and Medad, to total seventy-two. Local Jewish councils apparently had seventy-two members, but the Sanhedrin had seventy. Textual evidence may slightly favor seventy-two as the more difficult reading. If we could prove that Luke and Jesus were attempting to use the number symbolically or typologically