Subject: More quotable paragraph breaks for NASB? |
Bible Note: Doc, Thanks much for your comments on the versification of scripture. I find that this was done rather poorly too. And it's probably been largely a culprit in the tendency for people to take just a single verse and build whole doctrines around it, in the absence of such a verse's greater biblical context. I did a further brief count of chapters, paragraphs and verses in the (NASB) New Testament. I find it rather interesting how the different translations of the bible each have different paragraph breaks, solely dependent on what the individual publishers of each version may allow. The average paragraph in the (NASB) New Testament runs about 5 verses long. And I've isolated a fairly decent system of breaking each bible paragraph down to a five verse maximum, without being too restricting on the texts. There are three primary reasons that I desire to do this. 1. In the public quotation of scripture, it's very easy to lose people when more than a few verses are read at a time. Many NASB paragraphs may run twenty verses long, which is a bit much for people to fully digest all at once. 2. I personally believe that quoting single verses of scripture, to a congregation that is not largely familiar with the bible, tends to lead to greater contextual errors in the listeners. Hence, I prefer to quote at least a few verses at a time, with whatever I read publicly, so as to retain at least some small degree of context. 3. Smaller paragraphs breaks can also serve as a simple management tool when tackling more in-depth bible study. Basically, you break heavy passages into digestible bits, so you don't choke on them. Again, I fully agree with you that there are vast limitations to this approach. I comically figure that if the creators of chapters and verses in the bible did such a bad job, that I might be able to make some meager improvements on it, if solely for my own continued growth and understanding. ---- In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge; and he pondered, searched out and arranged many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly. The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd. But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body. (Ecclesiastes 12:9-12 NAS95) - Reighnskye |