Why would you do that? (Part 2: De-Versify!)

Some of the folks we presented The Books of The Bible to in our development stage were shocked. Why would you do that? Why take out the chapter and verse system (c&v)?

First of all, I should say I do understand the reaction. We’re all used to what we’re used to. Who moved my cheese and all that. Bible readers have become accustomed to seeing their Bibles in and through this system. Those who go to Bible studies or listen to sermons have become accustomed to having this system used as the main way to talk about the Bible. We’ve institutionalized and embedded it as THE way to reference, read, interact with, devotionalize and argue about the Bible. Most people have come to take it for granted as part of the Bible text itself. We’ve had a hard time imagining the Bible without it.

But of course it’s not part of the text. As I said last time, these additives are neither original nor natural. We’ve had the Bible for much longer without c&v than we’ve had it with it. And of course the problems with c&v are almost too numerous to list. But just in case you don’t believe me, let’s give it a shot:

* the impression given by c&v is that the reader is encountering a reference manual of some sort, so it immediately misrepresents the nature of the Bible;

* c&v imposes a kind of numbing “sameness” on the biblical material, flattening it out and disguising the real variety of material;

* c&v is off-putting and confusing to new readers of the Bible;

* chapter divisions typically don’t correspond with the authors’ divisions of thought;

* chapter divisions can direct people to make sense of only a piece of a longer section as if it were complete in itself;

* chapter divisions can direct people to read two or more smaller sections as if they really belong together in a single section;

* even when chapter divisions do align with the natural breaks in the text, they are all about the same length, thus allowing only divisions of a certain size to be shown and ignoring divisions of both a larger or smaller size;

* chapter divisions encourage the reader to stop upon reaching the end of the chapter;

* verse divisions imply that the Bible is a collection of independent and free-standing statements;

* verse divisions are often placed at awkward or inappropriate places;

* verse divisions lead to “verse-jacking”, an intrusive breaking into the biblical text, typically leading to the robbery of selected words in which the original context and meaning are left behind;

* verse divisions encourage a relativistic reading of the text in which the original meaning fades back and all that matters is what the isolated words say to me, now.

In short, c&v presents a serious distortion of the biblical text. So now when people ask me, “How can you mess with the Bible like that?” I say, “Exactly.”

-Glenn

P.S. I know this is going to be a problem for the “John 3:16” guy at all those televised sporting events. We might need to give him some new ideas. Since we’re promoting the reading of whole books of the Bible, maybe his sign should just say “John.” Or maybe “Jesus (heart sign) the cosmos”. Or . . .

Why would you do that? (Part 1)

Why would you do that?
Part 1: Changing the way the Bible looks

The two thousand year trend in the Bible world has been the slow and steady accumulation of additives. Scribes added notes in the margins. Longer texts were split apart. Eventually chapter divisions were added, then assigned numbers. Even later, numbered verse markings were inserted. Section headings, cross-references and footnotes followed. Very late in the Bible’s history the words of Jesus were painted red. Most recent is the development of “side bars” or colorful mini-commentaries planted in and around the Bible text. It is important to know that all of these additives are, of course, neither original nor natural.

The big idea at the heart of The Books of The Bible project is that visual presentation makes a big difference, for good or ill. For a long time all the attention has been focused on translation and on what we call “Bible helps.” What has been neglected is the huge role played in Bible reading by the way the words look on the page—the way they are collected and arranged, spaced and sized, divided and numbered. These visual cues exert their influence powerfully, but often unconsciously. We think we’re just reading the words. But what we take in, and how, is shaped in all kinds of ways by these cues.

It’s time we stopped to think about how all these additives actually influence our reading of Scripture. What reading (or nonreading) habits have we developed because of the additives? We’ll be looking at examples of the influence of specific additives in future blogs. The point here is just that what we see on the page—the numbers, indents, space, color, columns and distractions—all matter. Communication is a complicated, multisensory event. Bible publishers obviously don’t, can’t and shouldn’t control all the factors that go into what happens when a reader sits down with a sacred text and attempts to take it in. But some of the factors that Bible publishers do control have not been thoughtfully considered.

If Bible engagement, not just Bible sales and distribution, is the real goal, then these issues have to be taken seriously. What do we want to happen when someone reads a Bible? What, really, do we expect to happen when someone opens the Bibles that are actually produced these days? What does the reader see when they open these Bibles? How is their experience shaped, directed, or even dictated by what they see?

Church councils and professional theologians are not the ones who imposed these various foreign structures and additives on the Bible. Most of it was done by Bible copyists, printers and publishers. For our part, we believe it’s past time for the additives to come out.


Coming next time: Why would you do that? Part 2: De-Versify!