Bible Question:
Greetings. Is there a way that I can create additional paragraph breaks throughout my NASB bible, for purposes of making it more quotable for sermons? Please bear with me here as I go through some facts, purely for the sake of isolating bible study methods. ---- Currently the bible has nearly 1200 chapters with roughly 30,000 verses after my last rough estimate, and I'm greatly rounding the figures out here, so I can do an easier math. Then, we may further tabulate that the average pastor and/or sermonizer in the pulpit will give roughly 100 unique sermons per year (50 on weekends and 50 on weekdays). If each sermon is one hour long (and most sermons are shorter), this then allocates that a pastor/sermonizer does 100 hours of teaching per year directly from the pulpit. Further, the now deceased J. Vernon MgGee did a full radio exposition of the entire bible over a five year period with weekday shows of 1/2 hour each, which equates to 2 1/2 per week for 250 total weeks. Hence, a full bible exposition would potentially require 650 combined hours of pulpit teaching time, according to this vastly approximated measure. Further, it takes approxiamtely 60 hours for the entire bible to be verbally read aloud, as evidenced when the bible is placed onto a cd or tape set, via a bible orater. Hence, one tenth of a sermonizer's pulpit time is spent directly quoting scripture, according to these very rough figures. Whereas, 9/10ths of the time is spent in exposition, etc. ---- Anyway, that's my math so far. So, what's that got to do with anything practical? Well, I went through the bible and isolated sets of the top 100/200/500/1000 scripture units and highlighted them through comparative analysis. This largely started so I could look up verses easier on most any primary topic. I yet need to arrange these scripture units topically into a systemized set of 100 to 400 sermons (or thereabouts) with 4 to 12 quotable scripture units apiece. So here's my problem. I lack an accurate way to practically slice the larger paragraphs in the NASB down into smaller paragraphs of about 3 to 4 verses each. When I teach, I seldom like to quote more than 3 or 4 verses at a shot verbally, because it'll lose people. ---- Is there an efficient way to slice NASB paragraphs into smaller, more quotable units, in a relatively accurate fashion? - Blessings, Reighnskye |
Bible Answer: Reighnskye I understand what you’re saying but I wonder if the problem is in fact the length of the paragraph as in the number of verses or is there something else? I have used the NASB for over 20 years in my personal study and meditations however I found since my earliest attempts to read it aloud that I get tongue tied, begin to run sentences together and in general lose the audience. I’m of the opinion the word choice along with the sentence structure is the problem. I can read aloud from the New King James or English Standard version all day with nary a problem but let me pick up the NASB and I sound like the village idiot. While I continue to use the NASB for my personal reading and study I have long ago abandoned the idea of reading aloud from it. Having been a more than a casual observer of pulpit orators I have never seen the length of the passage be a problem if done with the proper speaking dynamics. However I have seen more than one stumble all over themselves reading from a version of scripture that doesn’t seem to suit their style of speaking. Just my thought on the subject. PS I’m impressed with your math! :-) EdB |