It still provides a chapter and verse range, in faded type, at the bottom of each page.įurther information: Books of Kings and Books of Samuel It also relies on the tendency of authors to repeat "particular phrases… each time they the transition from one section to another." The placement of these phrases "reinforces a structure that can already be recognized implicitly from other characteristics." The Books of the Bible uses line spacing of different widths to mark off natural literary sections on various levels. The Books of the Bible, according to its Preface, uses characteristics such as "changes in topic, movement in place or time, or shifts from one kind of writing to another" to identify the natural literary divisions within biblical books. In one individual translation and one abridgment the numbers were eliminated entirely, but in the former case the text was still divided into the traditional chapters and in the latter topical divisions were introduced. In response to these concerns, in several 20th-century versions of the Bible, including two major committee translations, the chapter and verse numbers were moved to the margins, but they remained the organizing feature of the text. Without giving any consideration to these divisions, the text must be printed in a way that will illustrate visually what units the authors themselves created within their works." Yet, when we open our ordinary editions, we look in vain for the lyrics, epics, dramas, essays, sonnets, treatises, which make the other great literatures of the world instead of these the eye catches nothing but a monotonous uniformity of numbered sentences." New Testament scholar Hermann von Soden urged publishers, "It is high time, in any editions that wish to facilitate rather than impede readers' understanding of the New Testament writings, for not only the verse divisions… but also the conventional chapter divisions to disappear completely from the text. None but a work of transcendent literary genius could have survived such a handicap at all." Richard Moulton noted, "We are all agreed to speak of the Bible as a supremely great literature. Ernest Sutherland Bates wrote, "Certainly, no literary format was ever less conducive to pleasure or understanding than is the curious and complicated panoply in which the Scriptures have come down to us. īiblical and literary scholars have noted that chapter and verse numbering disguises the actual form of the biblical writings and interferes with the act of reading. The verse divisions were added by Robert Estienne, a French printer and scholar, in the mid-16th century. The traditional chapter divisions in the Bible were introduced around the year 1200 by Stephen Langton, later Archbishop of Canterbury, when he was at the University of Paris. ![]() 2 Development of The Books of the Bibleįeatures Natural literary structure in place of chapters and verses.1.1 Natural literary structure in place of chapters and verses.
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