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It probably began as a reference scheme for scholars, by scholars. The same thing has happened to other ancient texts, like the works of Plato, Aristotle, and H
by kijin 6y ago
It probably began as a reference scheme for scholars, by scholars. The same thing has happened to other ancient texts, like the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Homer.
You can refer to The Republic 327a1, or Book 1 line 230 of The Odyssey, and people who study ancient Greek texts will immediately figure out which line you're talking about. Those references aren't complete sentences, either. Apparently it didn't matter to the people who first came up with the numbering scheme. The Plato reference format is actually nothing more than the page, column, and line number of a particular edition that happened to stick.
- wcarey 6y agoIndeed - and I'd say that the division of those sources has been broadly restricted to scholars, and that those scholars broadly also read those ancient texts in the enlightenmenty way that I'm suggesting does violence to them.
- mrozbarry 6y agoThis is exactly it. The chunking of chapters and verses was so monks could verify their copies. Imagine a monastery, with 100 scholars who are tasked with copying the entire bible, with duplicates. The best way to verify that it was copied correctly is to do spot-checks where the source and transcribed documents are compared on certain chapters and verses. At this point, I don't think it's necessary to split them up for making copies. That said, a lot of churches have integrated chapter/verse look ups as part of their service/sermons/bible studies, so it would be very difficult to remove them now.