{BIBLE} versification
Posted by: wulf <wulf@...>
> Look as you may, you'll find no verse numbers, or chapters,
> in a Bible until relatively recently (circa 450 years ago),
> concurrent with the developement of printing.
Was it that recently? I had thought it was earlier but a
little bit of research suggests that although other
systems of division began much earlier, chapters breaks
were defined by Stephen Langton in the early 13th
Century, with modern verse division being added in the
mid 16th Century (a long time ago but prior to even the
KJV). It was definitely a later addition to the original text
though. See:
http://www.fuller.edu/ministry/berean/chs_vss.htm
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~eslinger/genrels/VerseBible.html
> While versification is a great tool for locating sections
> quickly, I find it an annoying distraction when reading what
> I have located.
There are certainly many passages where the break
suggested by the verses is different to what seems to be
the sense of the passage - it's always worth around the
verses you're focussing to get a grasp of a coherent unit
of thought rather than assuming that this will be neatly
delimited by the verses.
Different bibles have different schemes for noting the
verses. I must admit that I've got so used to 'inline' verse
marks that I can read the text hardly noticing them. I
have found The Message a little frustrating when I've tried
to use it in a group context because of the difficulty in
telling people where I'm reading from (although some of
that's a circular argument - if people weren't hung up on
the artificial verse scheme they could just accept it as a
portion from X chapter Y).
Subsequently, my copy of The Message is gradually
sporting an increasing collection of my own marginal and
intertextual notes, as I mark out sections I want to share.
I believe there is a new edition out called 'The Messsage
ReMix' (or something similarly trendy) that does include
more standard versification.
Another system is that adopted by the Jerusalem Bible -
dots in the text marking the beginning and end of verses,
with the numbers kept out of the way in the margins.
Maybe it won't be too long before we're reading our Bibles
on electronic paper, which will allow us to search for a
passage, display it in context and then hide the verse
numbers until we want to pop them up for reference?
Wulf
--
Wulf Forrester-Barker <//<
NB. new preferred address: wulf@web-den.org.uk
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