According to the Wright's Bible Readers' Aids, the chapter divisions of the Bible were created in A.D. 1250 and the verses in 1550. That being true, these divisions are obviously not inspired, but rather tools intended to make the Bible, in modern speak, "user-friendly". The handy references to book, chapter and verse can be a boon for locating something or telling someone how to locate something. But if God didn't inspire these "user-friendly" tools, have we perhaps erred in creating them?
A Baptist Board member with the user-name Jack Matthews wrote, "I sometimes wonder if dividing up the Bible into chapters and verses that do not always align with the complete thoughts or contexts of the writing is a help or a hindrance to interpreting scripture. The early church clearly did not pick singular 'thoughts' out of artificial divisions of the Bible called 'verses' and formulate doctrines from them."
I'm not on a campaign to purge chapters and verses from the Bible, but Matthews' query is a valid one. The chapters and verses are a help. BUT could the hindrance of them be a greater negative than the help is positive? Possibly so. I doubt anybody will be buying a chapterless verseless Bible any time soon. But let's try to read the Bible in complete thoughts rather than just following the verse and chapter divisions for stopping and starting, and assuming those are where the thoughts naturally flow, stop and/or change. That's the least we can do.
6 comments:
Those word verifications and I get in a disagreement every once in awhile!
As to chapters and verses, the main thing is that people be aware. We have habits of reading the Bible and stopping at the end of a chapter (which provides a nice stopping place and a good starting place when we come back to it). Sometimes we fail to notice that the thought just goes right through the end of one chapter into the beginning of the next.
Ever heard of The Message? Until the Message/remix edition came out, it was verseless.
I saw a single-column verseless edition of the KJV at a bookstore a while back; its title made clear that it was intended for reading, not studying.
The new ESV Literary Study Bible is verseless, and according to Internet Monk, is totally awesome. I'll buy one as soon as I 1) have money and 2) see it in a store.
BlueNight, do you remember the title of single-column verseless edition of the KJV? Thanks.
I think it was just called "The Bible As Literature".
Thanks, BlueNight.
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