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When was the Bible divided
~to
chapters and verses?
The · system of dividing the Bible into chapters and
verses is man-made and of comparatively recent origin. The
Bible~
as inspired by God, had no such divisions.
Chapters and verses are helpful in finding passages
in the Bible, but the division into chapters and verses has
often obscured the meaning of Scripture by breaking sentences
in
the middle or by separating thoughts that should be joined
together. Too many people merely lift a verse out of its
setting and read a false meaning into it because they don't
read the context in surrounding verses.
Perhaps the first attempted division of the Bible
was undertaken by the early Jews. DUring the time following
the Babyl onian captivity, they marked off the scrolls into
divisions and subdivisions. This system was quite different
from the one that is
in
use today. however.
The first modern syeftem of dividing the Bible into
sections was devised by Cardinal Hugo in the mid-thirteenth
century. Hugo, who was compiling a concordance to the Latin
Vulgate Version of the Bible, found it necessary to divide
the Bible into sections. These sections
basical~y
became t he
chapters that we are acquainted with today. As yet there were
no divisions into verses.
Later, in 1445, Mordecai Nathan, a Jew, divided the
Hebrew Ol d Testament into chapters. He and a later scholar
by the name of Athias are accredited with the further break–
down of the Old Testament chapters into verses.
In
1551
the New Testament was similarly subdivided
into verses. This work was accomplished by the famous English
printer, Robert Stephens, while riding on horseback from
Swi·tzerland to France. Ever since that timeJ the Bible has
retained the present chapter and verse system.