"... There is a famous passage in the New Testament where, in the context of a discussion about persecution, Jesus says that not even one sparrow will fall to the ground “without your Father.” It is Matt. 10:29–31 ... Many translators and commentators have racked their brains over the precise sense of the apparently simple expression ἄνευ τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν. One finds, for instance, the following translations: “without your Father” (King James Version), “apart from the will of your Father” (New International Version), “without your Father’s knowledge” (New American Bible) ... Commentators, who are equally divided over this issue, frequently refer to a couple of passages in early rabbinic literature where one finds a comparable expression, e.g., “Not even a bird is caught without [the assent/will/aid/knowledge of] heaven, how much less the soul of a son of man” (Genesis Rabbah 79.6). But, apart from the fact that this rabbinic material dates from several centuries after Matthew, this is a relatively isolated case (The same applies to a passage in the Rule of the Community from Qumran, although it is pre-Christian) and, moreover, we still have the same problem of interpretation (It is widely agreed that the background of Matthew’s bird imagery is Amos 3:5 LXX “Will a bird fall on the earth without a fowler?”) ..."