The Bible:

Chapter and Verse.

The Bibles we have available to us now (I think at least 50 or so English translations alone) are divided into books, chapters, and verses. However the original Bible manuscripts (and of course the copies of those we use as the basis for our modern Bibles) had no chapters or verses. In fact they didn't even have much in the way of punctuation.

In about 1227 AD the Archbishop of Canterbury inserted chapters as an aid for bible study. These chapter divisions were then used in the Wycliffe Bible in 1382. In about 1555, Robert Estienne (aka “Stephanus”) added a further improvement when he divided the New Testament into numbered verses. He also leveraged the work of a Jewish Rabbi (Nathan) who had previously divided the Old Testament (as we call it) into verses in 1448.

The Geneva Bible (1560) and pretty much all Bibles since have used Stephanus’ chapter and verse numbering.

The challenge is that the chapter and verse numberings, while helpful, are artificial and don’t always help get the most from what's being read. That's because the chapter and verse divisions don't always align with the thoughts and concepts being explained.

There is a classic example in Romans. There is an entire concept or thought is being explained by Paul beginning at Romans 7:1 and running all the way through to Romans 8:11. (By the way, in Bible study a set of verses that make up a single, coherent unit or thought is called a pericope.) The current chapter and verse system sometimes (but not always) breaks up Bible pericopes. That's the case here in Romans.

The Romans 7:1 to Romans 8:11 pericope is interrupted as chapter 8 is unhelpfully started about two thirds of the way through the pericope. The chapter break between Romans 7 and Romans 8 begins with Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”.  But Romans 8:1 is the beginning of the conclusion flowing from the preceding verses (from chapter 7) and it belongs with them. However it is also the launch pad for the next related/joined concept running through to verse 11 of chapter 8. The chapter and verse division has in this case interrupted the teaching, the flow of thought.

Sometimes pericopes begin/end in the middle of a verse that we would normally treat as a single unit but is actually in two parts. For example, Acts 10 is divided into two pericopes which split either side of the middle of verse 23. The first Acts 10 pericope starts in Acts 10:1 and runs through to the first part of verse 23 (…He therefore called them in and lodged them) . The second Acts 10 pericope starts in the middle of Acts 10:23 (And on the morrow he arose and went forth with them…) and runs through to verse 48.

Often the differences between "chapter & verse" and pericopes are slight but not always. Sometimes our chapter and verse "overlay" can lead to mistaken understandings or incorrect emphasis or inferences.

An improvement on "chapter & verse" reading of the New Testament (I think so anyway) is by reading the concept or thought groups - the pericopes.

Below is a New Testament pericope outline created by Ivan Panin and used in his Greek and English Numeric New Testaments. It makes sense to me and has been helpful for improving my understanding of the Word and in setting up reading plans based on concepts or though groupings (pericopes) rather than artificial chapters and verses.

The order of the pericopes in the table below (from the top to the bottom of each column starting with Matthew's gospel) is the order that Panin uses.  In summary, the order is: The Gospels, Acts, the letters of James, Peter, John and Jude, the letters of Paul and finally "Revelation".

Legend:

1. Each table cell has an entry for a single "pericope" of the New Testament. Remember a pericope is a set of verses from the scripture that make up a single, coherent unit or thought.
2. (-a) means that the pericope ends half way through the last verse in the reference. E.g. "1Corinthians 2:1-16 to 1Corinthians 3:2 (-a)" means the pericope starts at 1Corinthians 2:1 and ends after the first section of 1Corinthians 3:2
3. (b-) means that the pericope begins with the second half of the first verse in the reference. E.g. "1Corinthians 3:2-17 (b-)" means that the pericope starts with the second half of 1Corinthians 3:2 and ends at 1Corinthians 3:17.
4. [xx not original] indicates that the verse in question is almost certainly not in the original New Testament documents. There are a number of verses that fall into this category - not all of them are shown here. It's a whole other story involving a King, some "Divines", politics and incomplete information.