The Tyranny of Chapter and Verse

Guest article by Bruce Axtens

As I am sure you are all aware, the chapter and verse numbers in your Bible aren’t inspired. They weren’t part of the originals. After centuries of various ad hoc mark-ups and divisions, one Stephen Langton, in the 12th century, came up with the chapter numbering that we still use today. Then in the 1500s, Robert Estienne, devised a verse numbering. This also became standard.

No longer are we saying, as Paul [1] did in Hebrews 2:6, “But there is a place where someone has testified”. Instead, as demonstrated, we use the name of the book, the chapter and the verse. And because the numbering is a global standard, I can say in a Pakistani congregation, “Yuhanna ki injil, teesra bab, solavin ayat (یوحنا کی انجیل، تیسرا باب، سولہویں آیت)” and everyone turns to John 3:16.

However, there is a downside to the numbering. For one thing, we have reified the numbering system — we can’t think of the text without thinking of the numbers. We think the numbers are part of the original text. We think that the breaks that they make in the text were intended by the authors. We compare what Paul said in one chapter of Romans with what he said in another chapter and believe that Paul’s chaptering was deliberate and should be taken into consideration when seeking to understand his argument.

Thus the chapter and verse breaks militate against our understanding of the text. They interrupt story and character arcs. They obscure arguments. They lead us, for example, to think that Matthew’s report of Jesus’ use of generation means one thing in one chapter and something else in another. And why? Because we assume Matthew wrote in chapters and verses. We assume that our recently added indexing methods are as inspired as the originals.

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As if these arbitrary breaks weren’t enough to distract our attention, we now have Bible publishers putting in their own section headings, these differing from publisher to publisher. I’m sure they mean well, but a heading can easily skew our appreciation and understanding of a text. And it is from these Bibles that scripture readings are done in congregational worship services. Is it appropriate for the publisher, rather than the preacher, to tell us what we should see in a passage?

Matthew may have segmented his narrative in some way, but was it with chapters and verses? Are we hunting for meanings that don’t exist in the original?

“Readers” versions of the Bible exist: NIV, and ESV and likely others. Bible websites can be instructed to turn off the numbers, e.g. BibleGateway.com. All provide an opportunity to read, study, and preach without the contrived breaks. Let the text speak without the scaffolding. Engage with the “raw” text!

The original Substack post can be found here.

[1] The early Christian congregations, East and West, accepted Hebrews as canonical. It has divine authority. Also, it is special pleading to insist that Paul could not have written it because it differs in so many ways from other examples of his writing. Hebrews does differ from Paul’s other letters, but does this necessarily imply a different hand, or just establish that Paul had a breadth of literary skill? We are happy to acknowledge William Shakespeare’s mastery of multiple genres. Would we now insist that Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew could not both be Shakespearean because one is Tragedy and the other Comedy?

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