This is going to seem like a bizarre sort of question (but there is method in my madness). I am looking for a bible that has no chapter or verse divisions. Preferably a KJV or NASB. Does anyone know of such a version?
MarksoI have heard that there is a NIV version which has no verse divisions. I am making enquiries.
This is going to seem like a bizarre sort of question (but there is method in my madness). Its not to mad! All the bibles throughout history never had any chapters or verses until I think the 1500's? And also the greek new testament doesn't have too many paragraph breaks in it, so the epistle to the esphesians could appear to be one long paragraph in greek. :-P
MarksoI have been making enquiries but to no avail. I can think, however, of a work-around. Do you know the Online Bible (free) You can get lots of different translation modules to go with it; some you have to pay for, but most are free. The Online Bible has an option for the text to be in 'paragraph style'. This will put any version into blocks rather than individual verses. You still have the numbers showing where the verses begin, but it is a big help to reading paragraphs to capture the flow of the scripture. Just a word of warning that the paragraphs are no more inspired than the verse divisions. If you need any help on doing it, please let me know.
Is there a difference in reading a bible without the verse and chapter separations? Is it more like reading a book?Maybe it helps you concentrate more if you aren't looking to quote?
PammyThere is an old story that the first person to put the Bible into chapters and verses did the job on horseback. Whenever the horse stumbled he started a new verse, and whenever he fell off he started a new chapter. It's not true of course but occasionally the chapter divisions are so badly placed that you would whether the old story about the man on horseback had some truth in it. :-P Yes, it can capture the flow of a passage better if you read right past the chapter endings. Whenever possible it is best to read an epistle at one sitting. When did you last receive a letter and read 20 sentences today and put away the rest for another day?However, as a road map the chapters and verse divisions can provide a useful purpose.
However, as a road map the chapters and verse divisions can provide a useful purpose. And one of the main useful purposes of the chapters and verses is that we can reference to a specific sentance quite easily in the bible.
I have been on a similar quest and am very surprised to find such a Bible is not readily available. I have worked with downloaded bible texts and stripped out all the verse and chapter divisions using a word macro but I still long for a Bible I can take on the train and read like a book. In a previous age I believe there were such "Paragraph Bibles" published, notably by the Cambridge Press, but they never caught on.I am getting to the point of arranging for a small number to be printed out of my own pocket using a version in the public domain such as the KJV or World English Bible. I'll keep you posted if I get anywhere with this idea.In the meantime I believe that the Geneva Bible and Tyndale were originally printed without the divisions and some of these are being re-issued in their original form for scholarly purposes.
Tyndale was certainly originally printed in paragraphs rather than verses. The Geneva bible was the first version to be printed in roman type, and the first in which the division of the text into numbered verses (originally made by Robert Stephanus for his Greaco-Latin Bible of 1551) was introduced.When Bullinger created the Companion Bible he lamented the fact that there was no consistency among paragraphed translations and so produced another one!
When Bullinger created the Companion Bible he lamented the fact that there was no consistency among paragraphed translations and so produced another one!Yes I appreciate the way that bullinger seperates the paragraphs and sentances so you can easily identitfy new trains of thoughts in the scripture. I think it was george fox that never quoted from a book just shared the scripture in speeches or writings. Its funny that most of what he shared was scripture and people didn't even know it half the time, but were captivated.
There is a UK preacher, David Pawson, who never quotes texts but only scripture. He sometimes playfully asks 'what is John 3:16?' When he gets an answer he askes 'what is John 3:15?' He seldom gets an answer to this. Hmm, he say, we have got to get out of the habit of quoting texts and start quoting scripture.
he say, we have got to get out of the habit of quoting texts and start quoting scripture.AMEN.
I couldn't agree more. I spoke on a retreat recently where it became clear that people were taking notes and expecting chapter and verse references as proof texts. I duly supplied as much as I could but at the same time it started to feel ridiculous. Just because I can give a chapter and verse reference to back up something I am saying it doesn't give it Biblical authority and yet in many circles it strangely does in people's minds.The example of Jesus and the apostles seems to be best to me with regard to this. They seemed to precede their quotes with "It is written" or "Moses said" kind of style. It was, perhaps a culture where the scriptures were known thoroughly enough not to need more specific. An insistence on chapter and verse proof texts may be more a sign of Biblical Illiteracy than of Biblical Literacy.Hmm...Thinking aloudSeymour
An insistence on chapter and verse proof texts may be more a sign of Biblical Illiteracy than of Biblical Literacy.True, especially the "insistance"!
I've always been somewhat embarassed that I can remember more or less what a scripture says but hardly ever where it is. I find myself sitting across from some Jehovah's Witness (for example), saying over and over "well, it's in here somewhere", and paging madly through the concordance; all the time getting the feeling that they are cooly ticking off their neat mental list of chapters and verses.You guys seem to think that perhaps it isn't so bad to just know what it says. All those years of Sunday School pay off eventually. :) How could anyone remember all those numbers, anyway?
Bible verses are just map references. I would rather trust someone who knew the area than rely on list of numbers. However those numbers can be useful when passing on information to someone else. I have found that, in the past, the best aid to my memory was a pencil. Writing out the verse and jotting down the reference seems to 'fix' it, especially if you use a simple notation for the references e.g. John 316 is much faster than using colons and creates a shape that is more likely to lodge in your mind.If you never get to remember the exact number location you will probably remember that 'it's on the right hand page at the top left corner'. That's just another kind of Bible reference and just as valid as John 3:16. In Bible days you had to get the right scroll and then unroll it 'find' the verse...And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, (Luk 4:16-17 KJV) The Lord had to unroll the Isaiah scroll almost to its end to get to that passage. Sometimes it is not a bad thing to have to 'find the place where it is written' it makes you take a little account of the context. John 3:16 takes you straight to the verse but you will have missed the vital definition of faith in verses 14 and 15.The kind of 'believing' referenced in John 3:16 is not the believing of facts but a desperate looking to the only possible cure.I have often found comfort in the comment of the writer to the Hebrews So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. (Heb 5:5-6 KJV) You can always use that if you're stuck... in another place it says.
I agree with Ron,its more helpful to know the whereabouts of scripture and actual verse/chapter ref can be helpfulon a light hearted note,has anyone gone to use someone else's bible during a meeting and for the life of you could'nt find the scripture because your so used to seeing it in your own familier bible or page.in times past when getting a new bible its been so hard to stop using "old faithful".hands up who's the same :-)
Hands up here. The cover of my Bible is slowly coming off and I am dreading the day that I have to get another. My mother, though, has got to be the ultimate example of this. I swear she has had the same Bible for at least 26 years! Legend has it that she got the thing when I was a baby. It was left out in the elements by accident once or twice, but she dried it out and kept going. When I was in high school she had it held together with a rubberband. Every now and again she would get another Bible for awhile, but old faithful would re-emerge eventually. I hadn't seen old faithful for quite some time and thought it had been retired; but when my mother came to visit in August and we sat down for tea and Bible reading before breakfast, she brought out the same old tattered Bible--in a ZIPLOC BAG for heaven's sake!! :) It's funny, but I love that Bible too. She's got stuff written all over inside the covers--prayer requests from prisoners during her jail ministry days, answers to prayer, requests from refugees in the camps in Korea...testimonies to God's grace...Phebe
I hadn't seen old faithful for quite some time and thought it had been retired; but when my mother came to visit in August and we sat down for tea and Bible reading before breakfast, she brought out the same old tattered Bible--in a ZIPLOC BAG for heaven's sake!! :)I quoted this saying of a friend of mine here once before. 'have you noticed that bibles that are falling apart are usually owned by people who aren't?'Seriously though it is not the reading of Bibles that usually causes the damage but carrying them, beating out your sermon points on them, or stepping on them accidentally when the meeting is over. Lesson? Get a biblebag and use it. To replace my Cambridge King James Turquoise 8vo refs, india paper would now cost me over £80. A biblebag is a good investment.Incidentally, Muslims are frequently very offended by the way we Christians use our bibles. To put it on the floor is to dishonour it. As a young Christian I had an old Scottish ex-headmistress who would never let me even put my hymn-book on top of my bible. In Sikkhism no one is allowed to sit higher than their scriptures. Have you seen how the Jew carries his scrolls in the synagogue and only touches them with a specially made pointer?I know its the words and not the book which is holy, but perhaps a little respect for the book itself wouldn't go amiss?
Ahah! I have found something that is pretty close in a second hand bookstore this weekend. It is Moulton's "The Modern Reader's Bible". The edition I have is from the mid 1920s but I think it is a later edition. This presents the whole Bible in a translation very strongly based on the Revised Version. Each book is presented in a form that reflects the literary mode of the originals so poetry looks like poetry and so-on. Paragraphs and new sections are used to separate out new thoughts or directions of narrative. The order of the books has been changed slightly to reflect a more literary and chronological sweep of scripture. Most important of all, chapter and verse are stripped out of the text itself and every fifth verse is discreetly noted in the margin so it is still possible to find passages using chapter and verse references.This seems to get the best of all approaches which are inevitably going to be a compromise of some sort. You can read the text as literature but still use chapter and verse without them dictating the division of the text and interrupting things.So far I have found this a very enjoyable and fresh way to explore the Bible although I do find the RV a bit more stilted than the KJV for reading aloud. Maybe it's a case of what you are used to.If anyone is interested then there are some copies available quite cheaply through abebooks dot com at the moment, I notice.
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