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gabadab
Guest
Does anyone know why the Douay-Rheims Psalms is off by one?
Just curious.
Just curious.
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bilop
Guest
Catholics traditionally use a different separation of the Psalms. Two Psalms in the first 22 (by Protestant numbering) are combined. Just like Catholics and Protestants use a different numbering of the 10 Commandments.Does anyone know why the Douay-Rheims Psalms is off by one?
Just curious.
Remember, the original Scriptures had no Chapter and Verse numbering. That’s a late innovation. They were just free form texts, like a novel.
God Bless
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Chesster
Guest
It uses the Greek numbering of the Psalms which is slightly different from the Hebrew numbering.
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Mintaka
Guest
Actually, numbers were part of the traditional “memorization by location” schemes used to memorize all sorts of things in the ancient world.
We know that both Jews and Christians in Greco-Roman times used this sort of memorization to memorize the Scriptures, and patristic writers sometimes refer to psalms by number as well as by name (although using their first line as the name was much more common). There were also fairly standard ideas about how to chunk up the Bible into chapters and verses (also for memorization purposes), aided by the memory-driven parallel structure of Hebrew poetry.
Standardization and writing down the numbers of Psalms, chapters, verses, etc. happened much later. But memorization in this numerically-chunked fashion is at least two thousand years old, and probably much much older.
We know that both Jews and Christians in Greco-Roman times used this sort of memorization to memorize the Scriptures, and patristic writers sometimes refer to psalms by number as well as by name (although using their first line as the name was much more common). There were also fairly standard ideas about how to chunk up the Bible into chapters and verses (also for memorization purposes), aided by the memory-driven parallel structure of Hebrew poetry.
Standardization and writing down the numbers of Psalms, chapters, verses, etc. happened much later. But memorization in this numerically-chunked fashion is at least two thousand years old, and probably much much older.
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Joe_5859
Guest
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paperwight66
Guest
As someone has already said, that didn’t apply to the Psalms.
But you are right as regards the rest of the Bible. It often surprises people to learn that it was divided into chapters by Stephen Langton, an Archbishop of Canterbury (Catholic in those days, of course) sometime in the late twelfth/early thirteenth century i believe, as he died in 1225. And not into verses until Robert Stevens did so in 1552. I think he was a printer.
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sirach2v4
Guest
The previous post with the link to Wikipedia gives a detailed explanation of the variance in numbering.
But, some have expanded the discussion to mention that chapter numbers weren’t introduced until around the 12th century and verse numbers even later.
Might as well mention that Hebrew did not have vowels, separate upper and lower case alphabets, spaces between words (generally), no parenthesis or footnotes or index, etc.
This explains how much tradition there is surrounding the actual way to read and understand the original text. In my reading of Jewish commenaries, there is still ongoing differences of opinion about the nuances of words.
And, there’s still a word or two in the OT that nobody knows how to translate. But, a lot of Bibles translate them without even a footnote indicating the difficulty of understanding what the text really says.
The Tanakh of the Jewish Publication Society published in 1985 represents the most widely accepted modern translation in Jewish circles. And, that translation into English has a lot of footnotes indicating the obscurity of the original texts or alternate ways of translating the Hebrew.
The Hebrew texts of the Bible are very old, and the Masoretic text which is the primary standard in Judaism dates back to only around 400 to 800 AD. The Masoretes were Jews dedicated to preservation of the texts, and the “Masoretic Text” is really a cheat-sheet version of the Hebrew, with dots and marks giving hints as to the traditional understanding of the words and their pronunciation. The Septuagint, although in Greek, is actually much older than the oldest Masoretic text.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were a real find, in that they contained confirmation of the popular texts that were in circulation, and they contained the Hebrew version of the DeuteroCanonical texts of the Septuagint, that were thought (e.g. by Martin Luther) not to even exist – duh – there they were.
But, some have expanded the discussion to mention that chapter numbers weren’t introduced until around the 12th century and verse numbers even later.
Might as well mention that Hebrew did not have vowels, separate upper and lower case alphabets, spaces between words (generally), no parenthesis or footnotes or index, etc.
This explains how much tradition there is surrounding the actual way to read and understand the original text. In my reading of Jewish commenaries, there is still ongoing differences of opinion about the nuances of words.
And, there’s still a word or two in the OT that nobody knows how to translate. But, a lot of Bibles translate them without even a footnote indicating the difficulty of understanding what the text really says.
The Tanakh of the Jewish Publication Society published in 1985 represents the most widely accepted modern translation in Jewish circles. And, that translation into English has a lot of footnotes indicating the obscurity of the original texts or alternate ways of translating the Hebrew.
The Hebrew texts of the Bible are very old, and the Masoretic text which is the primary standard in Judaism dates back to only around 400 to 800 AD. The Masoretes were Jews dedicated to preservation of the texts, and the “Masoretic Text” is really a cheat-sheet version of the Hebrew, with dots and marks giving hints as to the traditional understanding of the words and their pronunciation. The Septuagint, although in Greek, is actually much older than the oldest Masoretic text.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were a real find, in that they contained confirmation of the popular texts that were in circulation, and they contained the Hebrew version of the DeuteroCanonical texts of the Septuagint, that were thought (e.g. by Martin Luther) not to even exist – duh – there they were.
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gabadab
Guest
Thanks! This answers my question beautifully!
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Cranch
Guest
The earliest dating I have seen for the Masoretes is the 6th century with their work extending into the 10th century. The actual surviving texts I believe are even more recent, namely from the 9th century and later.
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Joe_5859
Guest
Wikipedia can be good for some things.
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