When Was the Bible Divided Into Chapter and Verse?

As modern-day readers, we’re so accustomed to the ideas of chapter and verse that we can barely imagine the Bible without them. But as it happens, it took over a thousand years for Christians to divide the books of Scripture into bite-sized sections; and the Jewish people were using a chapterless, verseless Old Testament long before that!

One of the consequences of all this was that ancient Jews and Christians tended to be far better at memorizing Sacred Scripture than we are today. A figure like St. Paul, for example, appears to have memorized virtually the whole of the Old Testament. Throughout his letters, he quotes from the Jewish Scriptures with ease. In Romans 10, for instance, Paul writes:

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. For, “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Rom 10:12-13)

The part in quotation marks comes from Joel 2:32, but since chapter and verse didn’t exist yet, St. Paul had no way of saying Oh, by the way, Joel 2:32 supports what I’m saying here. Instead, his only choice was to write out in full the quotation which he had in mind.

We should remember, too, that the quotation marks are themselves a modern editorial addition. In fact, ancient manuscripts lack not just basic punctuation, but also paragraph division, and even spaces between words. This helps explain why the idea of splitting the Bible into individual verses never caught on in the early Church, since ancient authors simply didn’t regard sentences as distinct entities in the way that we do today.

A 13th (and 16th) Century Innovation

Although it seems hard to believe, it wasn’t until the year 1205 that the Bible received the chapter divisions which remain in use to this day. These divisions were innovated by an Englishman named Stephen Langton, who at the time was a lecturer at the University of Paris. (Later on, Langton would be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and gain prominence for his role in orchestrating the composition of the Magna Carta in 1215.)

Chapters were a step forward, but it would be another three centuries before Christians could agree on the introduction of verses. This happened in 1551, when a printer from Paris named Robert Estienne (also known by his Latin name Robertus Stephanus) published a Greek edition of the New Testament which provided the chapter-verse division which we still use today.

Later on, Estienne extended his chapter-verse system to the whole Bible. The first Bible to adopt his system in English was the influential Geneva Bible, which appeared in 1560.

Benefits and Drawbacks

It’s worth remembering that many of the great saints of history—including all of the Church Fathers—went through life without ever encountering the Bible being divided into chapter and verse. And while our modern system gives us some distinct advantages in terms of being able to reference different parts of Scripture more easily, this does carry with it a certain danger.

Although Langton and Estienne did a good job overall, there are places where they end a chapter or verse in an awkward position, which can cause us to separate in our minds things which the biblical authors intended to be read together. To give just one example, in our modern Bibles the final verse of Revelation 11 is the following:

Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, loud noises, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail (Rev 11:19)

Now this is very interesting: the ark of the covenant appears in the heavenly temple, surrounded by lightning and thunder. But then the chapter ends, which might lead us to believe that the author of Revelation is about to transition to a new topic. On the contrary! Just consider the very next verse, at the beginning of chapter 12:

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars (Rev 12:1)

Traditionally, the woman clothed with the sun has always been identified (at least in part) with Our Lady, who is the new ark of the covenant. Understood this way, Revelation 11:19 and 12:1 are addressing not two distinct topics, but one and the same idea: Mary as the unblemished ark who carries the very presence of God within her. In other words, the two verses are supposed to be read together, and the fact that they are separated by a chapter break is unhelpful at best.

All Verses Great and Small

Whatever the merits of the way the Bible was divided up, one thing is for certain: our modern system of chapter and verse is here to stay. In Catholic Bibles, that system involves some 1,334 chapters across the 73 books of the Bible. (260 of those chapters belong to the New Testament, which means you can read the whole New Testament in 90 days if you commit to just three chapters per day.)

The longest verse in the Bible in the original Greek is Revelation 20:4, but in English that honor goes to Esther 8:9:

The king’s secretaries were summoned at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day; and an edict was written according to all that Mor′decai commanded concerning the Jews to the satraps and the governors and the princes of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language.

That’s quite a mouthful! By contrast, the shortest verse in the Bible comes when Jesus approaches the tomb of Lazarus: “Jesus wept” (Jn 11:35).

The longest Bible book in terms of chapters is Psalms, with each of the 150 psalms constituting its own chapter. Interestingly, both the longest and shortest chapters in the Bible are found in the book of Psalms: Psalms 119 and 117 respectively.

Further Reading

Jimmy Akin, The Bible is a Catholic Book (Catholic Answers Press, 2019)