Good observation, but I think it's overstated. I don't know many people who read the bible as a series of disconnected logical propositions, they mainly read it in much longer sections covering some topic.

Chapter and verse come in when you want to quote something, or shorthand something, or refer someone to a specific and narrow section.

In this usage, it's very similar to the way we cite Shakespeare, Homer, Chaucer, Milton, etc. For example, the St. Crispin's day speech in Henry V is at IV.iii.18-67, and any Shakespearean actor, fan, or scholar knows what that means, but that notation doesn't force them to think of the play as merely a set of disconnected speeches.

>> One of the most interesting things to happen to the scriptures is their balkanization into verses. We generally don't atomize other writings that way, and when folks read the scriptures as a series of disconnected logical propositions all sorts of wackiness ensues.

> Chapter and verse come in when you want to quote something, or shorthand something, or refer someone to a specific and narrow section.

It's also worth noting that the Bible is a text that pre-dates the printing press. Modern citation technology (cite edition and page number) depends on having standardized, mass-produced editions. It makes sense that closely-analyzed texts that only appeared in hand-made bespoke editions would need a different system.

Edit: This is a pretty interesting topic. Looks like the chapter/verse divisions were standardized after the printing press, but had roots in earlier systems of division [1]. Plato and Aristotle also got standardized sub-page-level citation systems around the same time [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapters_and_verses_of_the_Bib...

[2] https://getproofed.com/writing-tips/citing-plato-and-aristot...

While the chapter and verse were only introduced much later, the Judaic explanation of the scriptures, especially the Pentateuch, has been referencing parts of it by naming every passage (of 3-5 chapters) by the first meaningful word. This was done in writing as early as the Babylonian exile, as can be found in the Babylonian Talmud. Even now in traditionally written Tora scrolls, there are no chapters and verses, but one searches for the name of that Parasha to find the relevant portion

You make a good point, but I think your making the academic argument rather than the practical argument. Yes, scholars and avid Bible readers understand the exact location of a verse based on its Biblical coordinates, but plenty of others don’t. In practice, it is far more common to see the Bible quoted as a small snippet meant to re-enforce some other point. The Twitter feed of Senator Marco Rubio is a good example.

  In practice, it is far more common to see the Bible quoted as a small snippet meant to re-enforce some other point.

Any seriously complex work is very often quoted/cited as a small snippet meant to re-enforce another point. Speeches, books, statistics, other religious doctrines. In all of these cases, you can easily misinterpret the quote if you don't understand its origin.

The only reason the Bible is slightly different in this context is because the reference system has been formalized as being the best selling book in history means sometimes font sizes are gonna change.

You might have well just said:

  In practice, it is far more common to see [anything] quoted as a small snippet meant to re-enforce some other point.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation

The center cannot hold

The better angels of our nature

I think what you're saying is right on. But I do know the occasion where someone will take a verse by itself and consider it a single logical unit where they get all meaning, understanding, etc. from that one verse and nothing else. It's just a learning point is all. I've always been taught to take the scripture as a whole and not just take one verse for understanding.

I know a lot of them, most notable one being: Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Or: Matthew 15:11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

I'm thinking, for example, of the RCL, which often breaks passages mid chapter and occasionally omits individual verses. What sort of Christian community do you mostly know?

If you said "The St. Crispin's day speech" I'd immediately know what you mean. I'm definitely a Shakespeare fan, but would have no idea which act, scene, &c. that speech occupies. I'd wager that's much less true of the scriptures in many circles.

To some extent probably, but I wonder if that's as true as you assume.

I'd guess that many people in vaguely Christianized communities would be familiar, to some degree at least, with passages like "Daniel in the Lion's Den", "The Sermon on the Mount", "The Plagues of Egypt", "The Good Samaritan", and so on, without being able to tell you the chapter and verse (or even book) in which they're found.

Perhaps! I've encountered lots of fellow Christians who construct arguments by taking individual verses from everywhere in the scriptures and arranging them into an argument assuming that all the terms are equivalent and that the context doesn't matter. It particularly perplexes me when someone will cite, say verse x and then immediately after it cite verse x-2, reordering them in a way that destroys the sense of the passage, but supports some argument.

Perhaps there's an uncanny valley between people who are familiar with the broad strokes and people who argue contextually.

This practice is usually called "proof-texting" [1] and perhaps surprisingly it's not confined to one particular kind of Christian. For example, the very conservative evangelicals I grew up with were extremely anti proof-texting and decontextualized reading, to the point that they rarely read from the Bible (in church or otherwise) unless they're reading a whole chapter. On the other hand, the conservative evangelical Dwight Moody is often accused of promoting exactly this hermeneutical approach. In my experience, a certain class of the "reformed" are often guilty of it.

To be clear, I certainly think the people I grew up with were guilty of their own particular hermeneutical weaknesses, this is just about proof-texting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prooftext

[2] Can't find a ready source for this, could be the result of some infighting.

> I don't know many people who read the bible as a series of disconnected logical propositions

It's common to quote short passages (1-3 verses) in society, either to prove a point (often missing context) or in a "thought for the day" manner. Many homes have wall hangings with scripture that the owner has never read in the bible.

  Many homes have wall hangings with scripture that the owner has never read in the bible.

People quote literature they haven't read all over the place[1]. Implying its unique to the Bible means you probably haven't done your research either.

[1]: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/68007/50-famous-misquota...

The difference being that for the Christian (a presumption when you see someone quote scripture) the Bible supposedly defines their worldview, as opposed to various pieces of literature.

Usually the Bible is taught via stories, especially the Gospel stories, rather than individual verses and the verses are quoted to make points.

While there are, e.g., yearly Bible plans to read everything, not many people these days have the patience to read all the numbers in Numbers and there's an incredibly limited theological value in knowing how many there were of the tribe of Napthali or what have you unless you're trying to pass a Bible quiz.

I mean, why would a modern day Christian want to memorize all the rules on kosher food when Paul explained at length why they're irrelevant to us now? Or the rules on making a potion out of the dust of the Temple floor of a temple that's no longer standing? Or the rules about wearing clothing with multiple materials?

Yes, there are yet some principles that might be extracted of some of these--take for example, not muzzling the ox while it's treading the grain as an exhortation to take care of your animals and anyone who serves you. Or the prohibition on harvesting the last bits of crop at the edges of your fields, which were then reserved for the poor, to always reserve something for the poor among you.

But these things tend to be explained elsewhere and it ends up as trivia that doesn't matter much unless someone is insistent that a Real Christian [TM] must know whether the witch of Endor is from Samuel, Sirach or Star Wars... which in turn depends on whether she's named Charal or not.

Yes, really -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_of_Endor https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Charal

also true of Shakespeare, e.g. unironically quoting Polonius. I feel like the implied point of parent was that things which are referenced often probably tend to accrue/emphasize increasingly granular hooks for doing so. Whether the tail ends up wagging the dog is an interesting question, but it's also worth sussing out whether it developed more as pragmatic device than ideological imposition

Correct, its very seldom indeed any other work - ancient or modern - is quoted in this way. You have entire generations of Christians thinking only in isolated "memory verses".

One wonders if this practice is connected to the degradation and commercialisation of worship and countless trivial splits. It just doesn't make for lucid thinking or deep understanding of any work.

It is worth noting that the chapter divisions came long before the verse divisions. For reading, the chapters are as helpful as they are in any other book. I recall the verses were introduced around the time of the Geneva Bible and were intended to cross-reference for the purpose of arguing doctrine. Perhaps useful for scholars - who'd already be deeply familiar with the text as a unit - but hardly a method for comprehension of the books as a whole.

Edit: This discussion reminds me of the so-called Reader's Bibles which were made a few years ago. They present the text as a flowing single-paragraph, with minimal distractions. One such example is the ESV Reader's Bible: https://www.bibledesignblog.com/2014/06/crossway-esv-readers...

> That hermeneutic - texts are collections of independent logical propositions - was essentially unknown in the ancient world

On the contrary, the atomization and recombination of the text into new meanings is highly characteristic of Midrash. Of course, this isn't the same as the "prooftext" hermeneutic I think you're criticizing.

Even Jesus himself often referred to specific verses in the Old Testament: "Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Matthew 4:7; cf. Luke 4:12)" "“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’” (Matthew 5:38)" So the Scripture must have been "Balkanized" before Christianity existed. Which is not so strange given that it served both as religion and as a code of law.

> You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’”

That's a great example, because that verse is saying only punish an eye for an eye, and not a life for an eye. It's a verse requiring proportional punishment. (On top of that it means the value of an eye, not an actual eye.)

So quoting it that way actually does remove necessary understanding, which is making the OP's point.

Not sure I understand what you mean? Jesus was known as a rabbi and well-versed in the Scriptures. I don't think he was misconstruing the text he was citing. Here he is contrasting his view of justice ("turn the other cheek") to the legal norms of the time under which feuds and exacting revenge were commonplace.

My main point is that Jesus was probably not the first one to use this form of argumentation. He likely imitated other rabbis who had taught him to speak in this way.

The meaning for the "eye for an eye" verse is well known, it's talking about proportionality in justice.

It's a pretty strange choice to use when talking about "turn the other cheek".

> to the legal norms of the time under which feuds and exacting revenge were commonplace.

But that's exactly what "eye for an eye" attempts to stop. It's instructing people to seek appropriate justice, and not just attack people who hurt them.

Using that verse, rather hurts his message amongst those who understand the verse.

But it's a great way to show verses used out of context!

> was probably not the first one to use this form of argumentation. He likely imitated other rabbis who had taught him to speak in this way.

But they only spoke this way to other Rabbi's, never to people who did not already understand the meaning of the verse.

> The meaning for the "eye for an eye" verse is well known, it's talking about proportionality in justice.

> It's a pretty strange choice to use when talking about "turn the other cheek".

The phrase "an eye for an eye" puts an upper bound on retributive justice. That is, if you have been fouled, this is the maximum amount of punishment that you are allowed to inflict upon the perpetrator. Don't do as Lamech and kill the one who wounds you because that is not proportional.

Consider the context of Jesus speech. He was speaking to peasants in the Galilee for whom eternal feuds must have been commonplace. They must have been aware of the harmful effects of seeking revenge to everyone involved but unable to put an end to it. That is why one of his examples is a slap. There is and was no legal recourse for slap except for slapping back. Jesus asks his followers to "let it go."

Dear lovely @ars, thankyou for your comment. I agree it is strange. Context:

You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

--

So I think Jesus is agreeing with your comments. Interestingly verse quotations are prefaced with something like "It is written". Yet here 'hate your enemy' is not a biblical verse, and it is prefaced with "You have heard that it was said" -- Jesus was speaking to a crowd here, and contrasting what they had heard, with what his message

One of the implications is he is saying proportionality of justice is a start, but is not nearly enough. For instance, he ends:

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect

--

> But they only spoke this way to other Rabbis

He extremely strongly disagreed with the Rabbis. See Matthew 5 for context

I think more so what Jesus is calling Christians to do is to be forgiving of others in the way God is forgiving to man. Which can often be more difficult of a thing to do than to always seek proportional judgement. I do not think in other words his reading of that verse is all that different from yours.

Somewhat related to this conversation but this reading is clear in my view if you continue to read what Jesus says in this passage :)

The example shows that even Jesus quoted single verses out of context. So the assertion that this didn't happen in antiquity is clearly wrong.

Fascinating! Do you have a good book recommendation that introduces that? It's not something I know much about.

Here is a typical example (from Genesis Rabbah)

> And Cain rose up against his brother Abel. [...] With what did he kill him? R. Simeon said: He killed him with a staff: And a young man for my bruising (Gen 4:23) implies a weapon which inflicts a bruise. The Rabbis said: He killed him with a stone: For I have slain a man for wounding me (ibid) indicates a weapon which inflicts wounds. R. 'Azariah and R. Jonathan in R. Isaac's name said: Cain had closely observed where his father slew the bullock [which he sacrificed, as it is written], And it shall please the Lord better than a bullock (Ps 69:31), and there he killed him: by the throat and its organs.

From a Christian perspective, a more interesting example might be the Gospel's atomization/recontextualizations of text as Messianic prophecy ("out of Egypt I have called my son", "behold, a virgin shall be with child").

It probably began as a reference scheme for scholars, by scholars. The same thing has happened to other ancient texts, like the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Homer.

You can refer to The Republic 327a1, or Book 1 line 230 of The Odyssey, and people who study ancient Greek texts will immediately figure out which line you're talking about. Those references aren't complete sentences, either. Apparently it didn't matter to the people who first came up with the numbering scheme. The Plato reference format is actually nothing more than the page, column, and line number of a particular edition that happened to stick.

Indeed - and I'd say that the division of those sources has been broadly restricted to scholars, and that those scholars broadly also read those ancient texts in the enlightenmenty way that I'm suggesting does violence to them.

This is exactly it. The chunking of chapters and verses was so monks could verify their copies. Imagine a monastery, with 100 scholars who are tasked with copying the entire bible, with duplicates. The best way to verify that it was copied correctly is to do spot-checks where the source and transcribed documents are compared on certain chapters and verses.

At this point, I don't think it's necessary to split them up for making copies. That said, a lot of churches have integrated chapter/verse look ups as part of their service/sermons/bible studies, so it would be very difficult to remove them now.

The Bible was not written as single work the way novels like Persuasion are though. It is really a collection of books of very different origins and genre. Some books are laws where individual rules can be examined and there are collections of proverbs. But there are also parts which are longer narratives.

I think my point, though, that the unit of thought in the scriptures is not the atomic verse, still stands. If you'd like to emend "collected works of Jane Austen" to "collected works of 19th century authors", feel free.

A few things to consider:

1. Many of the writings are letters, and therefore short.

2. Many of the writings, though grouped together by books, their chapters really are often distinct documents written at different times. (some are even historical logs like Kings and Chronicles)

3. There are _many_ sections that really do break down by lines and sections. The best examples are Proverbs and Psalms.

4. It's a huge document, and much of it is useful to reference later, and having a system in place for this (of any kind) is helpful for many reasons.

Last, I agree with your general sentiment.

The first time I read sections of the bible without the artificial breaks and numbers getting in the way gave me a completely different perspective on the _content_. So I make a point to read like this when I feel the numbers may be in the way of comprehension.

I argue that in some cases the "units of thoughts" are verses (proverbs, laws), in other cases they are longer like psalms, sermons, chapters, letters or books. I totally agree taking a single verse out of a longer narrative rarely makes sense. But the bible is not like a novel or a collection of novels, although some of the books (like Job) is kind of like a novel.

Proverbs is certainly the book most amenable to division into verses.

Single sentences commonly span multiple verses which alone is enough to imply that cannot be true. I think very few who have read a Bible would come to the conclusion that verses are intended to be atomic.

No, but single narratives have been done -- Tolstoy's "The Gospel in Brief" is a nice example that both captures his interpretation of Christianity and ties explicitly back to the original verses. And its Tolstoy, so it makes a nice read :)

> That hermeneutic - texts are collections of independent logical propositions - was essentially unknown in the ancient world, and cedes immense epistemological ground to the project of the enlightenment that is diametrically opposed to a Christian reading of the Scriptures, which emphasizes their unity and their role in liturgical worship.

I just had to quote that sentence construction without comment.

But to reply to it more coarsely: who are you to define what a "Christian reading" of the bible is? As I see it, watching from outside the community, the piecewise selective quoting is very much a fundamental part of the practice of Christianity in the modern world -- especially of the evangelical Christianity that dominates in the USA.

I mean, I agree it's dumb. I just don't see why it's not "Christian". Christians are what Christians do.

> Christians are what Christians do.

This is generally not true. Try to replace "Christian" with "Atheist" or "Gnostic" and see how far this travels. While there are, I suppose, some distinctive practices that characterize various systems of belief (or disbelief), what distinguishes Christianity from, say, Judaism, is a set of irreconcilable beliefs (e.g., that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah). It is true that practices might distinguish religious groups (e.g., Orthodox Jews eat no pork, which is allowed to Christians), but those practices directly correlate to beliefs (Peter, citing Jesus, declares all meats clean in the New Testament).

No, religions are not merely practice: they are creedal, too. One who rejects the virgin birth is per se not Christian, at least if the word "Christian" means anything.

I’m positive Peter is not citing Jesus when he said that all food is clean.

This is an excellent example of how Christians take one or a few verses out of context and let them tell a story. If you would read the full passage about Peter, you’d find that the meaning of it was that whatever Gd has made clean shouldn’t be declared unclean by man. He goes on to explain it by saying that the Jews in his time weren’t allowed to go to a gentile, but, because Gd never said (when you study the Pentateuch) that any man was either clean or unclean (except certain circumstances), Peter shouldn’t consider gentile unclean by them being non-Jew.

Much of this reasoning applies to Christians when explaining that Jesus freed them from the law (eating pork, keeping Shabbat, etc), by which they basically support the questioning of Him being the Messiah. Anyone who proclaims to not follow the law, cannot be the Messiah (Deuteronomy 18:20).

However, if you’d read the NT carefully, combined with the scriptures of the scholars of that time (Hillel, Shammai, Gamaliel and more), you’d find that he’s a law obeying person, and encourages everyone to do so. Even stronger; He has much of the same understandings that the rabbis of his time have.

An example is Talmud (Shabbat 31a) where Hillel is asked to tell the Torah when the listener is standing on one foot. He answered by saying: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!

This is remarkably similar to what Jesus said when someone asked Him, and Jesus responded with something that was in his time spirit, but also written in Leviticus 19:18 (Matthew 22) 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy Gd with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Also this very passage explains that Jesus didn't get rid of the law, even more so, He said that Love for Gd (in the ways mentioned and taken from the Sh'ma (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)) and love of your neighbour are the base on which you execute every law (and prophets) that's given. Without this base, everything you do is worthless, it's merely a disguise than being a righteous (Tsaddik)

The meaning of "Christian" differs person-to-person and culture/tradition-to-culture/tradition, as well as over time. That Christ was born to a virgin, for example, was not necessarily agreed upon by early Christians, and it's certainly not agreed upon now. That Jesus was divine may not even have been universally accepted and also has its detractors today among Christians.

Both creeds and practices do tend to identify differences between religious groups, but those differences may not be so clearly cut in practice. At the same time, various sects may define the boundaries of the religion more narrowly than others.

Lots of Christians reject the virgin birth. You can say they are not "real Christians", but they could say the same about you.

this sounds as plausible as saying that a lot of atheists believe in god. maybe it's a thing? but it's hard to imagine dropping someone in nicea in 380 and suggesting this. words mean things: Christians believe in more than the virgin birth but certainly not less.

why not less? I think many see the "facts" as different. Their approaches to the texts are different, but "Christians" align themselves in someway with a entity called "Jesus". Different sects of Christianity tend to have their own definitions of what they think being a "christian" means and there are commonalities from sect to sect, and even some groups of sects have lots of strong commonalties, but there are still many ways they have incompatible beliefs as well. wikipedia has a reasonable list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denomination... and I'm pretty sure some "christians" in one of the sects would go "They aren't christians!" when it comes to other sects in that list.

Liberal Protestantism generally does not consider the virgin birth a critical article of faith. You can believe it if you want but it is not heretical to not believe in it.

Sure - by "Christian reading", I mean something like the practice of the ancient church that canonized the scriptures. That there should be normative Christian practice and reading is, perhaps, controversial, but a claim I'm happy to make. Modern American evangelicals who read the scriptures that way are doing it wrong and should knock it off.

The scriptures weren't atomized into verses until scholars of the 15th century wanted to work on them. The practice you see today is an outgrowth of that epistemology, and greatly to the detriment of Christian witness, theology, and practice.

> I mean, I agree it's dumb. I just don't see why it's not "Christian". Christians are what Christians do.

But American evangelical Protestants are a small minority of global Christianity. Catholics and Orthodox take a different approach, one which emphasises the binding role of church Tradition in interpreting the Bible, an idea which Protestants reject.

On the one hand, I think the Catholic approach is more correct than the Protestant one, but I think if the papacy hadn't been so authoritarian during the MIddle Ages and the period leading up to the Reformation that the Protestants wouldn't have felt the need to be able to argue scripture inch by inch by inch.

Counterargument: if they were upset by the behaviour of the Popes, there was always Eastern Orthodoxy – no papacy, and no arguing scripture inch by inch by inch either.

The real debate stems from information control. The Catholic church forbade the translation of the Bible from Latin into the local language (contrary to popular opinion, the majority of people could read even though spelling was not standardized). What happens when those people finally get a copy of the Bible based on the textus receptus and it has Jesus saying the Scripture is immutable and more important than tradition? What happens when they see clear and obvious contradictions between what He said and what their church was doing?

When Luther nailed the famous arguments on the church door (in common German so everyone could read them), he wasn't wanting to start up a new church. He was just pointing out the ridiculousness of buying forgiveness and the insane corruption and tradition over Scripture that had caused it. Instead of fixing the problems, the Catholic church doubled down and claimed the right to supersede even Jesus Himself. When they couldn't justify with words, they went straight to force.

Also keep in mind that the Catholic church was a political machine first and foremost. The Jesuit order in particular was so political that countries actually pushed the Pope so hard he issued Dominus ac Redemptor to completely suppress the entire order. It was rescinded 41 years later, but due to the internal political power of the Jesuit General, the cardinals refused to elect a Jesuit pope. Politically, the election of the first Jesuit pope in 2013 (199 years after the suppression was rescinded) hallmarked a very large political victory and unification of the Catholic church.

With that in mind, the Protestant Reformation, while primarily religious, was also political in nature.

I agree that it is a very interesting topic. Even the chapter breaks can be a real issue for a theologian. I believe there are some stories in the gospels which are consecutive in multiple books, but split by a chapter break in others. There are arguments in the epistles which span multiple chapters. But to the modern reader a chapter break implies a stopping point. Which might lead you to misunderstand the author’s intent.

Is "balkanization" really a general term for "dividing into parts" ? I think some sort of both internal and geopolitical strife needs to be involved.

And verses are not disconnected logical propositions, they are a structure between a sentence and a chapter aka. a paragraph. If anything - the grouping of verses into chapters is far more arbitrary than that of sentences into verses.

I chose "balkanization" to connote the things you reference; the atomic quoting of verses of scripture does violence to the text.

Verses are definitely not functionally paragraphs. Some aren't even complete sentences!

At least in the old testament verses range from sentences to paragraphs, have any interesting examples of a non-sentence verse ?

Sure - take a look at the first chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. The sentence:

Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

is divided into three (!) verses. That sort of thing is pretty common with the periodic structure of Paul's sentences. English readers, with our weak clause boundaries, struggle with those sorts of sentences anyway.

Corinthians is not part of the old testament so I'm afraid its versing might not be per the union standards.

It is currently versed as:

  Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom.

  But we preach Christ crucified - A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

  But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Which seems like three complete sentences forming a paragraph to me even if not to any modern style guide.

Alternatively it could have been:

  Jews demand signs and Greeks search for wisdom - but we preach [the words of] Christ crucified  !

  A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

  But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

In both cases the logical structure remains the same and the three sentences form a larger idea.

Ah - apologies - I misread you. I'm not sure whether there are any mid-sentence verse breaks in the Old Testament. I'll look!

I believe the first verse in one chapter in Job is “he said”. However, it is generally not separated out. Instead one and two are typically combined together and the next number is 3, or something like that.

There are several chapters in Job with the first verse being roughly "And X replied, saying" with the rest of the chapter being their reply. Still very much a full sentence that identifies the speaker.

I was thinking of Job 3:2, which, in some modern English translations is simply rendered “He said:”. But the Hebrew is more complete.

King James version also gets it right, but even "He said:" is a complete sentence.

tldr; Why not both?

I agree that it's odd that we have atomized the writings in the scriptures. You can find reader's editions if you want to remove the verses structure.

However, I don't agree that the verses are "diametrically opposed to a Christian reading of the Scriptures". I believe that there is room for both reading whole books and reading short quotes.

For instance, I don't think there's anything wrong with taking John 3:16 out of context because it is a very straightforward verse. It's really nice to be able to share verses easily by giving a <Book> <Chapter>:<Verse>. There is danger though when we do that with all verses of scripture, and we should be careful to study the context for verses before coming to any conclusion.

The key is to actually study the scriptures, and not just take the easy route and find verses that make you feel good about yourself. But that's easier said than done.

So, having read the whole of what you wrote, the reason not to do both is that atomization promotes an epistemology that does grave violence to Christian belief. God's self revelation could have been a math textbook: a collection of independent propositions related by logical necessity. But it's not.

His self revelation is a person who has a story and who tells stories. When we atomize the scriptures, we're implicitly constructing an argument against the epistemology that God has revealed in the scriptures. That's the thing that Satan does in the wilderness when he puts Jesus to the test. We ought not lead others into that time of trial.

So the convenience of being able to cite a verse as quick shorthand comes at the price of a profound argument against the coherent truth of the scriptural witness.

I would like to reply positively to what it is you are insisting that chapter and verse does to the Holy Scriptures. Your reply is beautiful and it is helping me reflect on how I will be presenting information in a forthcoming book on ancient biblical history.

To the defense of the creator(s) of this web application, I feel that the chapter and verse divisions have been in existence, and problematic, for a very long time.

For certain reference work this is a wonderful tool.

The verse structure's practicality as a reference mechanism far outweighs its downsides.

It's a bit of a stretch to indict the verse structure for the general decline in Biblical literacy in Christians.

It's entirely possible to quote a verse with correct contextual interpretation that conveys its meaning; if we're looking for a culprit for declining Biblical literacy I'd be much more apt to blame loose translations and paraphrases like The Message and The Passion Translation than the concept of verses.

I would blame nefarious church leaders who should know better but deliberately misrepresent the scriptures to their own end. The verse structure does facilitate this.

For example: Leviticus 18:22 seems quite popular amongst homophobes, but I don't see many of them killing adulterers (20:10) or burying blood (17:13), plenty of them oppress foreigners (19:33) and hate their gay relatives (19:17). They don't seem to be as keen on burning people who engage in a sportsman's double (18:14) as they are about waving "God hates fags" placards.

I'd be surprised if the same people who picket gay weddings and funerals chain themselves to combine harvesters with Leviticus 19:9 placards, or harass people going to real estate agents' offices with Leviticus 25:23 signs.

What are the upsides? What are the downsides? (And to whom?)

Note that I'm not saying the downside is "declining Biblical literacy" - by many metrics I'd imagine that's increasing? I wonder how you'd measure that? And I wonder whether whatever scheme you came up with wouldn't presume some hermeneutic and really just measure the extent to which people buy into that hermeneutic? For example, who is more Biblically literate? The person who can quote, verbatim, with correct citation 100 verses of scripture, or the person who can re-tell in paraphrase the story of Jesus forgiving Peter after the resurrection?

I'm saying the downside is a transformation in what it means to read the scriptures.

Are you aware of any movements that aim at solving the problem you are referring to?

I am not a chapter and verse person, and almost my entire understanding of the Bible comes through my own remembrances, all paraphrasing now, of what I learned when I was younger.

I often wonder if there's a great many people out there like myself. Seems like there is?

Sure - there are lots of folks aiming at a more authentic reading. In general, the older a church, the more it aims at a reading that avoids the modern atomizing impulse. The Catholic and Orthodox churches do some good work on that score, as do Anglican and Lutheran theologians.

I upvoted one of your earlier comments because it was a thought provoking and interesting criticism that I didn't know about and will keep in mind. So thanks for that!

Even though there are Lutheran and Anglican theologians that aims at what you call authentic reading, I would be surprised if that has a real impact of the members of these churches, and for me that is really were the focus should be.

According to: https://anglicancompass.com/scripturelessons/ "Anglicans read four passages of Scripture during Sunday worship. Out loud.

So do some other traditions, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutherans and others."

I would be surprised if the next week's passages would follow this week's passages, so I assume that this "ritual" will atomize the Scriptures either if they are divided into verses/chapters or not. (There are of course a lot of other parts of the life in these churches as well; but the Sunday service is still an important part).

I am used to a progression in Scripture readings, where each Book is read chronologically (with input from other Scriptures that does not follow chronologically as well), but that has little to do with if the Book is divided into verses/chapters or not. So for me personally, I doubt the atomizing of the Scriptures has a great impact.

I'm glad you found it thought provoking. The liturgical churches tend to follow a lectionary, which, as you say, excerpts from the scriptures. The RCL has some passages that I think are cut poorly, but generally keeps the unit of thought at the level of the particular story or argument.

While I would not go as far to say that having verses in scriptures is a tactic of the devil (note that in the wilderness, Jesus also quotes snippets of scripture back to Satan as a rebuttal), I can see your point that it probably does more harm than good.

I do wish that the standard was to not have verses, and have the verses version be the exception rather than the rule. I can see the benefit of having verses, but I think there is far more benefit from reading scripture as a whole instead.

Well, some books of the bible are more aphoristic, like Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, as are plenty of other ancient texts like the Quran or the Sutras or the Tao te Ching. There's also Jewish numerology, and the mystical(?) idea that the arrangement of the letters in the Pentateuch is only one of many possible perfect combinations. The concept of divine infallibility definitely has a lot of weird implications, or semi-implications that people just run with. Conversely, the cipher-like quality of the scriptures is what makes them so hermeneutically fun, especially for all those violent little cults that have a way of taking over the world.

Ecclesiastes is very easy to take out of context. Individual verses seem like nice aphorisms, but the book as a whole is actually quite skeptical and even critical, at least of certain worldviews. In some ways, it's a series of rejections of easy answers.

Shakespeare comes to mind for balkanization.

The First Folio followed the KJV by a dozen years, and the two dominate English.

In contrast to Jane Austen, both the KJV and the Folio are collections of other works.

Thus they may lend themselves ore than novels to being served frgmentally.

> and when folks read the scriptures as a series of disconnected logical propositions all sorts of wackiness ensues.

Most people reading the bible don't do this. This would be very very odd.

This is pure speculation, but I wonder if the verse structure helped with copying, like some sort of primitive coding standard.

The NT authors are constantly quoting snippets from the OT.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Think of it as a map, and similarly, the map is not the territory.