Bibles without chapters or verses

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Bootstrap
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by Bootstrap »

Adam wrote:The main problem with the single volume is the very thin paper and ghosting. We don't read any other books that have paper that thin and ghosting. It really does make a big difference. My thought is: If you are going for a Reader's Edition, put out all the stops and make it a true reader's edition. The thicker paper makes quite a difference.
I agree. Make it look and feel like a book if you want people to read it like a book.
Adam wrote:The great thing about removing chapters and verses is that it moves us away from proof texting and considering individual quotes out of context. But when doing detailed study and interacting with books and commentaries, obviously the chapter and verse references are a must. So when doing detailed study, the chapter and verse Bible is the way to go, but when reading, I would highly recommend this type of Bible. We get so caught up in the details of the text that we often miss the big picture of what it is trying to say to us. I would say that is true even for the academic--chapters and verses and notes and cross-references interfere with the flow of reading the Bible. It is visual clutter, which affects us all. (Not to say that the clutter doesn't have its use for detailed study.)
Like footnotes and margin notes and cross references and all that. Useful, but not for straightforward reading.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by Bootstrap »

Valerie wrote:I have to admit it is hard for me as I read the ESV because I will read a passage that I was familiar with in the KJV or NKJV version and I get perplexed why the ESV changes the wording- it seems to give some passages a different meaning-
Why is that perplexing?

They aren't changing the wording from the KJV, they are doing a new translation. The KJV is a good translation, but it doesn't get everything right, so sometimes this is simply a more accurate translation. Or sometimes there's more than one legitimate way to understand the text, and different translations each reflect their understanding. And they are also translating a different Greek text, nobody in the time of the KJV had access to most of the early papyri of the Greek New Testament.

In general, the ESV is a more literal translation than the KJV, and when I discuss it with people who know Greek, we usually see it as one of the more accurate translations. I think it's a little harder to read than, say, the HCSB, which is not quite as literal but reasonably close.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by Bootstrap »

Adam wrote:They do not do a new paragraph for each verse as is typical in most King James Bibles.
That's always bugged me. It makes it read like a collection of individual verses, not sentences and paragraphs.

Of course, verses aren't the only thing introduce later. Spaces and punctuations are a later innovation too. Aristophanes of Byzantium invented punctuation around 200 BC, but it wasn't widely used. Hebrew was the first classical language to use punctuation, and when they did, they went wild:
Biblical Hebrew was the first classical language to be systematically
punctuated. In comparison with modern languages the system was very
complex: there are more commonly used punctuation marks in Hebrew than
there are letters in the English alphabet, and they are applied not only
between phrases but to virtually every word of the scriptures, indicating very
precisely each word's relationship with others in a phrase as well as dividing
each sentence into hierarchically ordered word-groups.
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MaxPC
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by MaxPC »

Adam wrote:
The main problem with the single volume is the very thin paper and ghosting. We don't read any other books that have paper that thin and ghosting. It really does make a big difference. My thought is: If you are going for a Reader's Edition, put out all the stops and make it a true reader's edition. The thicker paper makes quite a difference.

The great thing about removing chapters and verses is that it moves us away from proof texting and considering individual quotes out of context. But when doing detailed study and interacting with books and commentaries, obviously the chapter and verse references are a must. So when doing detailed study, the chapter and verse Bible is the way to go, but when reading, I would highly recommend this type of Bible. We get so caught up in the details of the text that we often miss the big picture of what it is trying to say to us. I would say that is true even for the academic--chapters and verses and notes and cross-references interfere with the flow of reading the Bible. It is visual clutter, which affects us all. (Not to say that the clutter doesn't have its use for detailed study.)
I agree about the thin paper. Publishers have improved on that in some editions but it does present issues for those of us who are older and clumsier in accidentally tearing pages. I've always felt that the publisher who produces a Bible in superior materials will have a sell-out.

As one who is full time on the road and has limited storage, I think it would be absolutely brilliant if a one volume reader's Bible were to be produced in materials similar to the waterproof Bible I spotted some years ago. As an example, here's one that's published currently.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

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MaxPC wrote:As one who is full time on the road and has limited storage, I think it would be absolutely brilliant if a one volume reader's Bible were to be produced in materials similar to the waterproof Bible I spotted some years ago. As an example, here's one that's published currently.
I had my hands on one, and I didn't like the feel.

On the other hand, you can mark all over them, erase the markings, and start over. I'd like that best in a Bible with very wide margins, double or triple spaced. Currently, I like to print up texts with wide margins, double or triple spaced, and scribble all over them if I am doing particularly serious study.
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temporal1
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by temporal1 »

Adam wrote:
Valerie wrote:Question- from time to time Jesus would quote passages from the OT- and also certain passages the disciples would recall, - I understand what people are saying about proof texting (which I didn't even learn of this until Mennodiscuss) but since the Lord & disciples would bring up certain passages themselves, is it wrong to do so?
Valerie, it is a good observation that Jesus and the disciples often quoted from the Old Testament in a way that we might be tempted to classify as proof texting.

:arrow: The difference is that they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak/write they way that they did. And even so, they never quote the Old Testament in such a way as to ignore the witness of Scripture as a whole or speak in contradiction to the bigger picture of what God was doing in history.

Generally those who offer proof texts today do so to the neglect of other Scripture references that would disprove their point. That is generally what I consider a proof text.

When making a point regarding what Scripture teaches, we need to take into account the entirety of what Scripture teaches on the subject, giving priority to Jesus first, the rest of the New Testament second, and, finally, the Old Testament. So, we can cite just one Scripture so long as our interpretation of that Scripture is faithful to the testimony of Scripture as a whole and the bigger picture of what God is doing in history.

:arrow: I believe that is what Jesus and the disciples did, but that is not usually what happens these days when one Scripture is pulled out of context to prove a point.

For example, I could quote Proverbs 21:20a, "Previous treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling," and then argue that the Lord wants me to store up precious treasures for myself on earth because it is wise to do so, but that would be in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus, who says, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth."

If I quoted and interpreted Proverbs 21:20a in that way, it would be a prooftext. I would be relying on one Scripture taken in isolation to make it say what I want it to say even though my interpretation of that Scripture is out of line with what the whole of Scripture teaches.

:arrow: I don't think Jesus or the Apostles do that when they quote the Old Testament.
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by PeterG »

Bootstrap wrote:Growing up, I was told that entire letters of Paul would be read in one sitting to a church. I haven't examined the evidence on this, but this is how I think of it still.
It doesn't even take that long to read the epistles this way. Most of them can be read from beginning to end in well under half an hour.
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by RZehr »

Sounds interesting, I ordered one of these ESV bibles this morning.
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by lesterb »

Adam wrote:
lesterb wrote: Dumb question probably, but do they use paragraphs?
They do not do a new paragraph for each verse as is typical in most King James Bibles. Rather, paragraph breaks are inserted to follow the natural structure of the text. Poetry is formatted as poetry, and because it is a single column layout, it avoids most of the awkward line breaks that you get with poetry in double column layout Bibles.
That's what I wondered. Genuine paragraph breaks help you to divide the text into logical chunks when you read.
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Re: Bibles without chapters or verses

Post by Josh »

Particularly alarming is how Jesus or the Epistles mis-quote the Old Testament, including using the Septuagint (when we all know the MT is a better text). One could very well question if Jesus or Paul had a good hermeneutic.
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