Verse numbers

M

melodicbard

Registered Senior Member
How did religious texts get the verse numbers?
Are they just a tool for easy reference?
Who assign them? Are they assigned by some authority.
Do they agree in different sects or branch of that religion?

e.g.
Old Testament
New Testament
Koran
Mormon
etc...

I have seen some use those verse numbers as in a numerology approach and suggest the verse numbers are hints, for example, to dates of events in history/future.

Any ideas? :confused:
 
Verses are just an aid to referencing scripture. I do not know how they came to be added to the bible. I have never had problems with verses but i have often had disagreement with chapters. When i read a book or a letter in the bible i disregard the chapters when reading. I have seen some scripture that should be together in one chapter cut into two.

So verses don't bother me but Chapters i disregard.

All Praise The Ancient Of Days
 
My understanding is that the verse numbers were first added by Luther in his German translation of the Bible. These verse numbers were followed for his Englsh translation by William Tyndale. Even Jewish Bibles now follow the same numbering system, though there may be trifling differences at some points, I'm not sure.

The chapters and verses themselves, however, though not numbered, were generally clearly delineated in older manuscripts. Some old manuscripts of Latin bibles would be written in three scripts: Carolingian miniscules for the most part, but headings in Roman Capitals, with introductory passages in Uncial. A new chapter would be heralded by a letter in a Roman capital form, and it is for this reason that the words "chatper" and "capital" are etymologically related. New verses were indicated by a spatium, which was a considerable space from the previous text, which also might be underlined. The underlining was called a paragraphum from which of course we get the word "paragraph".
 
"In understanding how chapters and verses came to the Bible, it is important to realize that they were completely arbitrary. They were not applied with any logical or consistent method, do not represent literary units, and do not define the author’s unit of thought. The Bible was not intended to be read in bits and pieces! Chapters and verses are simply a reference point and should not be used to influence the interpretive approach of the Bible student!"

How did the Bible get chapters and verses?​
Also in that article:
"Stephen Langton (1155/56 – 1228) in 1205, as a Paris theological professor, was the first to make chapter divisions to facilitate his work with Bible commentaries."

"Robert Stephanus (also known as Robert Estienne), a Protestant book printer living in France, printed Greek and Latin Bibles that French ecclesiastical authorities considered heretical. As he fled with his family to Geneva on horseback, he arbitrarily made verse divisions of the New Testament within Langton’s chapter divisions. In 1555, Stephanus printed his first Latin Bible with his New Testament verse system.

However, Stephanus’ work was not the first Bible printed with New Testament verse divisions. In 1538, seventeen years earlier, a Latin Bible was printed with different verse divisions, but it was Stephanus’ version that was used for the first English Bible - The Geneva New Testament of 1557, which became the verse system used today."​
 
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