History of chapter and verse divisions of the Bible
Although some portions of the original texts were divided into parts following the Hebrew alphabet, the original manuscripts did not contain the chapter and verse divisions that modern readers are familiar with. Examples of texts divided into parts using the Hebrew alphabet include Psalm 119 and the book of Lamentations. The earliest copies of the book of Isaiah use letters of the Hebrew alphabet for paragraph divisions. These divisions are different from what we use today.
The Old Testament began to be put into sections before the Babylonian Captivity (586 B.C.) with the five books of Moses being put into a 154 section reading program to be used in a three-year cycle. Later (before 536 B.C.) the Law was put into 54 sections and 669 sub-divisions for reading.
Chapters came about after the Bible had been divided into verses. Chapters were added by Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro between 1244 and 1248 A.D. He did this when he was preparing a concordance of the Bible.
Before the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., the New Testament was divided into paragraphs which were different from our current divisions.
The modern chapter divisions came about through Stephen Langton, a professor at the University of Paris and afterwards an Archbishop of Canterbury. He put the modern divisions into place around 1227 A.D. Since the Wycliffe English Bible of 1382 this pattern has been followed.
In the New Testament, the verse divisions were first added by Robert Estienne in his 1551 edition of the Greek New testament. In 1557, the first English New Testament with verse divisions where used in a translation by William Whittingham (c. 1524-1579). These divisions have been used by nearly all English Bibles since then.
The first Bible in English to use both chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible in 1560.
Modern chapter and verse divisions of the Bible
In today's English Bible, there are 929 chapters in the Old Testament and 260 chapters in the New Testament. This gives a total of 1,189 chapters.
There are 23,214 verses in the Old Testament and 7,959 verses in the New Testament. This gives a total of 31,173 verses.
Unusual facts about modern chapter and verse divisions of the Bible
Psalm 117 is the shortest chapter of the Bible.
Psalm 119 is the longest chapter of the Bible.
Psalm 118 is the middle chapter of the Bible and comes between the shortest and longest chapters of the Bible. It also contains the middle verse of the Bible: "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man." Psalm 118:8 (NASB)
There are 594 chapters before Psalm 118 and 594 chapters after Psalm 118. If these numbers are added (594 + 594), the total is 1188.
This isn't correct. Psalm 117 is actually the 595th chapter of the Bible - meaning it is the center chapter.
Jesus wept is the shortest verse.
Pitfalls of dividing scripture into verses
When first written down, the books that were later chosen as part of the Biblical canon contained no verse indications. The Tanakh contained paragraph and phrasal divisions that were indicated in Masoretic vocalization and cantillation markings, but these do not correspond to the modern versifications, which were first inserted more than one thousand years later, with the advent of the printed Bible.
The impulse of people to conceive of verses as units of syntactical meaning, though baseless, is strong, and the use of versification as an aide-memoire leads them further in this direction. Interpretation of isolated verses often leads to imputed meanings that are at odds with those that would be derived from the same words in their Biblical context.
See also
Last updated: 02-19-2005 07:17:42
Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55
