Chapters and verses, which are so much a part of our conscious and unconscious experience with the Bible, are pure human fabrication. They first appeared in the 13th century (chapters) and the 16th century (verses). They are so ubiquitous in our Bible-reading experience, that it is hard to imagine a Bible without them.
The breakup of the Bible’s text into chapters and verses is certainly very helpful for studying the Scriptures and for teaching them, but it also can lend a disjointed, atomistic character to the text, enabling proof-texting and decontextualization.
Christians often speak of citing “book, chapter, and verse” as a means of lending authority to a statement they are making. This unfortunately makes it possible to justify nearly any interpretation, or, in a best case scenario, using the wrong passage to make a valid point of theology, doctrine, or practice.
Our deeply embedded reliance on “book, chapter, and verse” raises the question of whether for the Scriptures to be authoritative, is such a citation necessary to validate teaching and preaching? If someone were to say “God is love” without citing I John 4:8, would it carry the same weight? Would it have the same authority in a sermon? Would that statement still be perceived as the Word of God without such a citation?
A good thought experiment in this regard is to imagine how you might read the Bible differently without chapter and verse divisions. Would you be forced to gain greater facility with the full text of each book? Would you, by necessity, grasp greater context and continuity of what you read? A related thought experiment is to imagine how the earliest Christians might have read Paul’s letters that were copied and passed around among the early churches. Would they have read a few sentences (there were, remember, no “verses”) one day, set the letter aside, and read a few more the next and thus work through the letter over several days? No, they would have red it in its entirety just as you would read a letter from a dear friend.
Rare on Sunday mornings in Evangelical circles is the verse-by-verse reading of a lengthy portion of Scripture, let alone a cycle of readings used by older church traditions. The dominant Evangelical approach is to teach about a topic in a sermon that pulls citations from multiple books of the Bible to make theological or doctrinal point. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, it breaks asunder the unity of a given book of the Bible and enables the promulgation of nearly any point of view. In the hands of responsible teachers and scholars, such proof-texting can be beneficial. But that approach can be dangerous for less well-trained teachers, let alone charlatans who are using the Bible to lend authority to their agenda.
Granolativity 