Verse numbers are somewhat un-Catholic?

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Joel_Tunnah

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I’m not the first person to think of this, obviously, but it seems like the very concept of chapter and verse numbering of the bible is contrary to Catholic thought on the bible.
Doesn’t this encourage parsing, proof-texting, and other protestant-esque approaches to the text - rather than a wholistic, context driven view?

What are your thoughts on this?
 
Joel_Tunnah said:
I’m not the first person to think of this, obviously, but it seems like the very concept of chapter and verse numbering of the bible is contrary to Catholic thought on the bible.
Doesn’t this encourage parsing, proof-texting, and other protestant-esque approaches to the text - rather than a wholistic, context driven view?

What are your thoughts on this?
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I see using chapter and verse the same as I might veiw citing sources for a research project.
I do not have the verses memorized as I do read wholistically, according to context at taught by the Catholic Church.
It is nice however to know that Love is described in Corinthians or that in Sirach, God gives us the choice between “fire and water, life and death” and tells us to “choose life.”
If I am going to give an exact verse, I need my Bible right in front of me. Then I might be able to tell you exactly where to find the Beatitudes, Christ’s teaching on divorce, or the story of the Woman at the Well.
 
Joel_Tunnah said:
I’m not the first person to think of this, obviously, but it seems like the very concept of chapter and verse numbering of the bible is contrary to Catholic thought on the bible.
Doesn’t this encourage parsing, proof-texting, and other protestant-esque approaches to the text - rather than a wholistic, context driven view?

What are your thoughts on this?
Click to expand...
None of the originals had any chapters or verses. Most of the OT did not have spaces either!

The chapters and verses were added by Catholic scholars and translators to give clarity to the text for discussion and reading. I think it probably never occurred to them that the Reformists would chop up the text thereby.
 
guanophore said:
None of the originals had any chapters or verses. Most of the OT did not have spaces either!

The chapters and verses were added by Catholic scholars and translators to give clarity to the text for discussion and reading. I think it probably never occurred to them that the Reformists would chop up the text thereby.
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They didn’t even know that there would be Reformers mostly likely.

The chapter and verse numbers just made it easier for scholars to refer in their writing to exactly which sections they were discussing without having to write the whole thing out every time. No printing press, no typewriters, no PCs. They were just trying to make their own lives easier!
 
I’m not trying to get to the historical reasons for verse and chapter numbers - the benefits are obvious. But are the drawbacks?
 
The bible can be misused, with or without chapter and verse numbers. Recall that the devil quoted scripture to Jesus when tempting him, without using verse numbers!
 
Well, arguably, the same abuses can occur without the verses being numbered as well as long as someone can recall or look up the selected sentence and read it or quote it out of context. If you read the Early Church Fathers, many of them quoted snippets of Scripture here and there without benefit of chapter/verse.

Now, maybe if they had never added punctuation (which did not appear in the original Hebrew and Greek)…:hmmm:
 
Joel_Tunnah said:
I’m not trying to get to the historical reasons for verse and chapter numbers - the benefits are obvious. But are the drawbacks?
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The drawbacks are not in the presence of the referents, but in the absence of the readers to accept the Teaching of the Apostles given to us by Jesus. Once the reading of scripture is removed from it’s context (the Catholic Church) then it all goes downhill from there.
 
This is a real gem for Catholic apologetics.
WHEN THE CHURCH PUT VERSE NUMBERS IN THE BIBLES?
Do “Bible believing” ™ anticatholics know that?
 
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