Chapters and verses of the Bible
A Bible verse refers to the smallest unit of a piece of text in the Bible. Each chapter is divided on average in 26 verses. The purpose is mainly in the fact that one can point to certain statements in the Bible and readers can easily find the relevant statements. The verses measured at longest chapter of the Bible is Psalm 119 with 176 verses, the shortest Psalm 117 with only two verses.
History
The division goes to the French theologian and publisher Robert Estienne ( Stephanus called ), who joined the Calvinism in 1550. In 1551 he numbered in his editions of the Bible as the first the text by chapter and verse. The chapter divisions took Estienne by the Englishman Stephen Langton, who had divided the text in 1206 and replaces various older systems chapter; the further division into verses took Estienne for the Old Testament from the Jewish tradition (where he brought this to the Langton'schen chapters in match), for the New Testament he created them himself
1553 Estienne published a French Bible, which was the first complete Bible with the still current Bibelverseinteilung. The new classification has been adopted due to its practical benefits after some time of all denominations.
In addition to the units " book", " section" and " paragraph in " is the Bible verse of the structuring of the text and to uniquely referencing one place. This is necessary because, in contrast to source information and references in other books, the page number is dependent on language, translation and printing. In addition, some biblical books differ in scope: Daniel and Esther included in the Greek translation ( Septuagint ) some additions that were retained in the Latin Bible ( Vulgate ), and thus in the Catholic Bible canon.
Similar to a verse in poetic texts, they can consist of up to several sets of one part of a sentence.
To specify a different verse patterns are used. Basically the biblical book, chapter and verse is given.
The names of the books of the Bible differ from issue to issue, the most common is for German versions of the naming by the Loccumer guidelines.
Conventions for specifying a verse
There are practiced different spellings in the indication of verses. But mostly, the following notation applies:
- 2nd place: Name of the book
- 3rd digit: number of the chapter
- 4th digit: number of the verse
- Notation for specifying multiple chapters or verses
Examples
- Specification of a biblical book: 2 Tim (also: 2 Timothy ), Matthew
- Indication of a chapter: Neh 11, 1 Corinthians 3 (also 1 Cor 3)
- More than one chapter: Jos 14:15, Jos 9-15, Hebrews 10:11, Hebrews 8-10
- Indication of a verse: John 3:12, 2 Samuel 3.1 (also: 2 Sam 3:1)