Why would you do that? (Part 3: Showing Natural Breaks)
OK, so we’ve taken out the chapter and verse division. The flip side of taking out c&v is to identify natural, inherent ways of organizing things. Just as we seek to discover authors’ intentions in individual words and passages, we can look for their literary-structural intentions.
Some folks will say, “If you want to show the original form of the Bible, you have to show it all as rows of letters with no spaces, punctuation or indents, just like ancient Bible manuscripts.” But this is mistaken. The production of ancient documents was not at all like modern printing and publishing. Writing materials were difficult to come by and copying texts was time-consuming, labor-intensive work. The books of Moses were not formatted for easy reading and then mass produced so every Israelite could read “My Daily Manna” while they ate their daily manna. The rare copies of these texts were “published” when they were read aloud to the community. We can’t look at ancient manuscripts and expect to see literary structures reflected in the design or layout.
What we do instead is explore literary signals. There are lots of things to look for: shifts in literary type, changes in topic, progression in plot, and, very importantly, key repeated phrases at literary seams. Because most of us have not been encouraged to read whole books of the Bible, nor to read them as literature, we are not used to paying attention to these things.
But look what’s there! Genesis is organized around the phrase “this is the account of.” Matthew summarizes and marks things out by repeating “When Jesus had finished saying these things.” Each of the five books of Psalms ends with a special blessing. New Testament epistles contain the regular elements of first-century letters. And so on. There are natural organizing features throughout the Bible’s books. What happens when readers pay attention to all this? They begin to read whole sections as whole sections. They begin to see how these natural sections fit together. They can follow
the sustained and reinforced messages of biblical authors over the course of whole books.
Admittedly, not everyone is going to agree with all the text breaks we’ve identified in The Books of The Bible. Of course, not everyone agrees with word choices and section headings that translators dictate either. Or sermon applications that pastors make. Or lots of things people do to and with the Bible. This is what happens when God gives us his revelation. We get to be genuine human beings, imaging God and using the gifts and abilities he gave us to interact with it.
We are open to reasoned input on ways to improve our work. There are great dialogues already happening, both on the internet and in person. But we believe firmly there is more to show in Bible texts than just paragraphs. Biblical authors structured their writings on larger levels. If we read with an eye for them, we can discover them. If we discover them, we can publish Bibles that reflect them.
A whole new level of Bible reading! Not just snippets of devotional words for the day, or isolated verses to memorize or debate, but the bigger messages of whole books. Mo betta Bible reading.
-Glenn
Some folks will say, “If you want to show the original form of the Bible, you have to show it all as rows of letters with no spaces, punctuation or indents, just like ancient Bible manuscripts.” But this is mistaken. The production of ancient documents was not at all like modern printing and publishing. Writing materials were difficult to come by and copying texts was time-consuming, labor-intensive work. The books of Moses were not formatted for easy reading and then mass produced so every Israelite could read “My Daily Manna” while they ate their daily manna. The rare copies of these texts were “published” when they were read aloud to the community. We can’t look at ancient manuscripts and expect to see literary structures reflected in the design or layout.
What we do instead is explore literary signals. There are lots of things to look for: shifts in literary type, changes in topic, progression in plot, and, very importantly, key repeated phrases at literary seams. Because most of us have not been encouraged to read whole books of the Bible, nor to read them as literature, we are not used to paying attention to these things.
But look what’s there! Genesis is organized around the phrase “this is the account of.” Matthew summarizes and marks things out by repeating “When Jesus had finished saying these things.” Each of the five books of Psalms ends with a special blessing. New Testament epistles contain the regular elements of first-century letters. And so on. There are natural organizing features throughout the Bible’s books. What happens when readers pay attention to all this? They begin to read whole sections as whole sections. They begin to see how these natural sections fit together. They can follow
the sustained and reinforced messages of biblical authors over the course of whole books.
Admittedly, not everyone is going to agree with all the text breaks we’ve identified in The Books of The Bible. Of course, not everyone agrees with word choices and section headings that translators dictate either. Or sermon applications that pastors make. Or lots of things people do to and with the Bible. This is what happens when God gives us his revelation. We get to be genuine human beings, imaging God and using the gifts and abilities he gave us to interact with it.
We are open to reasoned input on ways to improve our work. There are great dialogues already happening, both on the internet and in person. But we believe firmly there is more to show in Bible texts than just paragraphs. Biblical authors structured their writings on larger levels. If we read with an eye for them, we can discover them. If we discover them, we can publish Bibles that reflect them.
A whole new level of Bible reading! Not just snippets of devotional words for the day, or isolated verses to memorize or debate, but the bigger messages of whole books. Mo betta Bible reading.
-Glenn
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