Origin of Bible Chapter and Verse Numbers
Where Do Bible Chapter and Verse Numbers Come From? Where did the chapter and verse numbers in our Bibles come from? Chapter and verse numbers are such a familiar (and useful) part of Bible reading that we rarely give them much conscious thought. In fact, verse numbers are so integral to the way we talk about Scripture that it’s hard to imagine the Bible without them. But those numbers haven’t always been there. The Old Testament has long been organized into sections and subsections; our modern chapter and verse divisions generally (but not always) correspond to the traditional Jewish organization of the text. While the Old and New Testaments have been roughly organized at least since the Bible canon was established, it wasn’t until 1,000 years later that something resembling our modern chapter and verse system was widely accepted. The person credited with dividing the Bible into chapters is Stephen Langton , the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1207-1228. While Langton’s isn’t