Column/Stratford church of Christ
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QUESTION: By whom, and when was the Bible divided into chapters and verses?
ANSWER: I frequently remind serious Bible students to be aware that the chapter and verse divisions in our Bibles are not inspired of God. This is a good question, indeed.
The thought was first introduced in the Vulgate version in 1228 A.D. Stephen Langston introduced the idea. However, the actual usage of chapter and verse divisions as we have them today is attributed to Cardinal Hugo, and the year was 1250 A.D.
You may be interested to know that in the Authorized Version (i.e., the King James Version), the Bible contains 3,566,480 letters, 773,746 words, 31,102 verses, and 1,189 chapters. For those who claim that the Bible is just too hard to be understood, the average word in the Bible contains five letters, and is written on a level for a student in the fourth grade!
The middle verse of the Bible is Psalm 118:8. The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35, that is in the English. In the Koine Greek manuscripts, the shortest verse is actually I Thessalonians 5:16. The longest verse in the Bible is Esther 8:9, which contains ninety words. The longest word in the Bible is found in Isaiah 8:1. Every letter of the English alphabet can be found in Ezra 7:21 with the exception of the letter “j”.
The Old Testament scriptures were translated from the Hebrew into Greek for the first time in Alexandria, Egypt circa 270 B.C. Most students of history know that the Bible was the first book to be printed on a printing “press” in 1450 A.D. The first English Bible ever printed in America was in 1782. The first actual translation of the Bible in our nation took place in 1663, and was done in an Indian language by John Eliot. It is not generally known that Noah Webster, author of the famous “Webster Dictionary” and the “Blue-Black Speller,” also made a translation of the Bible which was printed in the year of 1883. There are many interesting “facts” about the Bible that can be gleaned, but they are less than meaningless if we do not study its pages (II Tim. 2:15), and obey its teachings (Matt. 7:21-ff).
We appreciate your questions concerning the Bible. A warm welcome awaits you at all services of the Maysville church of Christ. Each Sunday we have worship services at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Bible classes are offered each Sunday morning at 10 a.m. and on Wednesday evenings at 6 p.m. The church building is located at the corner of Main and Ash streets. You can request a Bible Correspondence Course by mail with no obligation. Send your Bible questions to us at P.O. Box 562, or call us (405) 867-4807. You can email those questions to me at jessandterr@yahoo.com.
We invite you to our Spring Gospel Meeting with Tommy Haynes of Moore, OK. The dates are March 27 - 30. Sunday services will be at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. The weeknight lessons will begin at 7 p.m. Monday through Wednesday. Please come and be our guest.