Chapters & Verses
How Doctrine Changed the Meaning by Forcing a Layout
In another social media platform (that I am moving away from) I used Wiki Links to present related background information that is not necessarily part of the lesson itself. This Wiki Link provides information on the addition of chapters and verses to Scripture. This information is dry and a academic, but is necessary background to understanding how this change came about in Scripture.
I feel it is important to note that I created this Wiki long before I started including the web links to the source material. I apologize that this information is lacking on this Wiki. I offer that the quotations are all attributable to another person and I do not intentionally use them for any purpose other than to offer the knowledge base. There is no intention of infringement and if I had the links, I would put them in without hesitation.
The last paragraph is my own paraphrase of a collection of pieces of information, but may include direct quotations within. I will not claim it as “my own work.”
** Robert Estienne was the first to number the verses. 1551 for the Apostolic Writings and 1571 for the Tanakh.
“…In antiquity Hebrew texts were divided into paragraphs (parashot) that were identified by two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Peh (פ) indicated an “open” paragraph that began on a new line, while Samekh (ס) indicated a “closed” paragraph that began on the same line after a small space….” Ernst Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 20.
“…the Torah (its first five books) were divided into 154 sections so that they could be read through aloud in weekly worship over the course of three years. In Babylonia it was divided into 53 or 54 sections (Parashat ha-Shavua) so it could be read through in one year…” Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, n. 28.
“…The New Testament was divided into topical sections known as kephalaia by the fourth century. Eusebius of Caesarea divided the gospels into parts that he listed in tables or canons. Neither of these systems corresponds with modern chapter divisions…” Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans and Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989), pp. 252 ff.
“…Archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro developed different schemas for systematic division of the Bible in the early 13th century. It is the system of Archbishop Langton on which the modern chapter divisions are based…” {Hebrew Bible article in the Catholic Encyclopedia; Moore, G.F. The Vulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses in the Hebrew Bible, pages 73–78 at JSTOR. page 75; Bruce M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations, Oxford University Press (1977), p. 347. Cited in Stephen Langton and the modern chapter divisions of the bible by British translator Roger Pearse, 21 June 2013.}
“…Since at least 916 the Tanakh has contained an extensive system of multiple levels of section, paragraph, and phrasal divisions that were indicated in Masoretic vocalization and cantillation markings. One of the most frequent of these was a special type of punctuation, the sof passuq, symbol for a full stop or sentence break, resembling the colon (:) of English and Latin orthography. With the advent of the printing press and the translation of the Bible into English, Old Testament versifications were made that correspond predominantly with the existing Hebrew full stops, with a few isolated exceptions. Most attribute these to Rabbi Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus’s work for the first Hebrew Bible concordance around 1440…” Moore, G.F. The Vulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses in the Hebrew Bible, pages 73–78 at JSTOR. page 75
“…The first person to divide New Testament chapters into verses was Italian Dominican biblical scholar Santi Pagnini (1470–1541), but his system was never widely adopted. His verse divisions in the New Testament were far longer than those known today…” {Miller, Stephen M.; Huber, Robert V. (2004). The Bible: A History. Good Books. p. 173. ISBN 1–56148–414–8.; Pitts Theology Library Exhibit on the Verses of the New Testament}
The first English New Testament to use the verse divisions was a 1557 translation by William Whittingham (c. 1524–1579). The first Bible in English to use both chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible published shortly afterwards in 1560. These verse divisions soon gained acceptance as a standard way to notate verses, and have since been used in nearly all English Bibles and the vast majority of those in other languages.
