Who came up with the chapter and verse designations?

[DavidFilmer]

I know that, for most of Christian history, the Bible was not divided into chapters and verses the way it typically is today.

I believe the original purpose for this division was an aid to typesetters (once the printing press had been invented). But I can’t discern how this would have been helpful - some verses are long, and some are short (likewise with some chapters). It seems kinda random.

Anyway, what I’m really wondering about is WHO came up with the system we use today. It seems to be fairly universal in both protestant and Catholic Bibles, regardless of the translation. And I’m pretty sure it extends to many (if not most/all) non-English Bibles as well.

Who came up with the system we use today?

Thanks!

 

[Danno2281]

The history of the current citation by chapter and verse is lengthy, but generally Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury (ca. 1220), is credited with the division into chapters… Subsequently, a French printer named Robert Estienne (ca 1550) is credited with the current system of versification. Both of these refined work that had been previously done by a host of others.

 

[Lancer]

I know that, for most of Christian history, the Bible was not divided into chapters and verses the way it typically is today. …

Anyway, what I’m really wondering about is WHO came up with the system we use today. It seems to be fairly universal in both protestant and Catholic Bibles, regardless of the translation. And I’m pretty sure it extends to many (if not most/all) non-English Bibles as well.

Who came up with the system we use today?

Thanks!

*"…A point of order…" *as they say…your question made me think of this tangential aspect of your question…and…in my mind it is one that we as Catholics should be more conscious of at all times and in all places. This is offered simply for your consideration.

There is only one bible…the Catholic bible…it was the Holy Spirit who guided the Catholic Church over nearly 400 years to ratify the canon of scripture. The bible is a collection/canon of Catholic books…there is no such thing as a Protestant bible. Yes, I know that we all use this “Catholic…Protestant” label/tag/designation…to distinguish between differences…but I think that habit sets us up to forget this important point…the Bible is Catholic from beginning to end. (period). Our Protestant brethren simply and sadly…have an attenuated (weakened in value and strength) the Catholic bible…by their own choice…but it is not “The Bible”…once you alter or change anything in the canon…you don’t have the “The Bible”! [see CCC paras 128, 129 & 134 below). I know, I know…everyone accepts it…including me…but we need to think about this a little more often and more precisely…if I can state it this way.

Below are some Catechism (CCC) quotes for “…food for thought”. If the highlighted portions are true (and they are)…how can we say that since our Protestant brethren have deleted 7 books of the Old testament (39 vs the 46 in the Canon)…that they have the fullness and the complete written Divine Word of God – The Bible – we can’t because…they don’t! And as scripture says…

Revelation 22: 18-19 (NIV)

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
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If the Holy Spirit said this about the Book of Revelation…do you think that He might have the same guidance about all of Scripture…All of which is His Work!

CCC

105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."69 "For Holy Mother Church, **relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church **herself."70

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit,** we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God,** for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72

The unity of the Old and New Testaments**128** The Church, as early as apostolic times,104 and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which **discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son. **

129 Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen.** Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself.105 Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament.**106 As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.107

130 Typology indicates the dynamic movement toward the fulfillment of the divine plan when "God [will] be everything to everyone."108 Nor do the calling of the patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, for example, lose their own value in God’s plan, from the mere fact that they were intermediate stages.

134 All Sacred Scripture is but one book, and** this one book is Christ**, “because all divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ” (Hugh of St. Victor, De arca Noe 2,8L 176,642: cf. ibid. 2,9L 176,642-643).

Lastly…so…if “ALL”…means “ALL” (in CCC134 above)…and our Protestant brethren have deleted 7 books…they have deleted part of Christ himself!

Pax Christi

 

[mackbrislawn]

I know that, for most of Christian history, the Bible was not divided into chapters and verses the way it typically is today.

I believe the original purpose for this division was an aid to typesetters (once the printing press had been invented). But I can’t discern how this would have been helpful - some verses are long, and some are short (likewise with some chapters). It seems kinda random.

Anyway, what I’m really wondering about is WHO came up with the system we use today. It seems to be fairly universal in both protestant and Catholic Bibles, regardless of the translation. And I’m pretty sure it extends to many (if not most/all) non-English Bibles as well.

Who came up with the system we use today?

Thanks!

In regards to the relatively recent division of scripture into chapters and verses, this division does help us to find places in the bible, which sometimes is a good thing, but could this be considered to be a man-made tradition imposed onto the word of God? After all, God did not deliver His word to us that way, but more as a continuous whole. Chapters and verses tend to fragment scripture, and allow it to be quoted out of context.

What do you think?

 

[Poco]

The following was taken from this web page:

From The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908-1912), volume 2, pages 113-14.

The purpose of the present division into chapters and verses was to facilitate reference. These divisions sometimes, but not generally, ignore logical and natural divisions.

Common opinion concerning chapter divisions attributes them to Cardinal Hugo of Saint Cher for use in his concordance to the Latin Vulgate (c. 1240, first printed, with modification, at Bologna, 1479). This opinion rests on the direct testimony of Gilbert Genebrard (d. 1597), that “the scholastics who with Cardinal Hugo were authors of the concordance” made the division. Quetif and Echard, a century and a half later than Genebrard, ascribe to Hugo only the subdivision of the chapters presently to be mentioned. The better opinion is, that Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1228), made the chapter division to facilitate citation.

The present verses differ in origin for the Old Testament, New Testament; and Apocrypha. In the canonical Old Testament they appear in the oldest known manuscripts (see above, I, 1, § 7, 2, § 2), though they were not used for citation by the Jews till the fifteenth century. The earlier printed Hebrew Bibles marked each fifth verse only with its Hebrew numeral. Arabic numerals were first added for the intervening verses by Joseph Athias, at Amsterdam, 1661, at the suggestion of Jan Leusden. The first portion of the Bible printed with the Masoretic verses numbered was the Psalterium Quincuplex of Faber Stapulensis, printed at Paris by Henry Stephens in 1509. In 1528 Sanctes Pagninus published at Lyons a new Latin version of the whole Bible with the Masoretic verses marked and numbered. He also divided the Apocrypha and New Testament into numbered verses; but these were three or four times as long as the present ones.

The present New Testament verses were introduced by Robert Stephens in his Greco-Latin Testament of 1551 (see above, II, 2, § 2). Stephens says in his preface that the division is made to follow the most ancient Greek and Latin copies. But it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find any Greek or Latin manuscripts whose divisions coincide very nearly with Stephens’s verses. Doubtless he made this division with reference to his concordance to the Vulgate, then preparing, published in 1555. This Latin concordance, like former ones, contains references to the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and also to the numbers of the verses of each chapter “after the Hebrew method” of division. This latter, the preface states, has special reference to an operi pulcherrimo et proeclarissimo which he is now printing, which must mean his splendid Bible of 1556-57, 3 vols., containing the Vulgate, Pagninus, and the first edition of Beza’s Latin New Testament. Meanwhile, for present convenience, he is issuing a more modest Bible (Vulgate), with the verses marked and numbered. This latter was his Vulgate of 1555 (Geneva)–the first whole Bible divided into the present verses, and the first in which they were introduced into the Apocrypha.

mackbrislawn -
Interesting question. It may. On the other hand, it makes it easier to find the quote taken “out of context” and correct the “error”.

 

[Danno2281]

Robert I Estienne (Paris 1503 – Geneva, 7 September 1559), known as Robertus Stephanus in Latin and also referred to as Robert Stephens.

 

[Poco]

On a side note… The “Robert Stephans” cited in my previous post and the “Robert Estienne” cited by Danno2881 seem to be the same person.

 

[Poco]

Robert I Estienne (Paris 1503 – Geneva, 7 September 1559), known as Robertus Stephanus in Latin and also referred to as Robert Stephens.

Beat me to the punch!

 

[mackbrislawn]

The following was taken from this web page:

mackbrislawn -
Interesting question. It may. On the other hand, it makes it easier to find the quote taken “out of context” and correct the “error”.

Chapter and verse divisions are a useful tool in the proper hands.
In improper hands–and we know who they are–artificial divisions make it easy to bring parts of scripture together that may never have been meant to be brought together. This results in the array of differing theologies all created from the same scriptures.
Chapter and verses, as well as the codex format with pages, enable random access to scripture, instead of the God-delivered scrolls with seamless sequential access.
With sequential access you have to really know scripture, in order to know where a particular passage lies. This means you also will know the context of the passage, and not pluck it out so a verse can exist and be used in isolation, as many of the so-called “bible christians” do.