The Origin of the Chapters and Verses in the Bible - Laurence M. Vance

There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible divided into 31,102 verses. How the chapters and verses came to be is the topic of this study.

Their origin will help us to better understand and appreciate their uses. Although the modern division of the Old and New Testaments into chapters began in the thirteenth century, the division of the Old Testament into what can be considered verses actually preceded this. The division of the chapters of the New Testament into verses did not occur until the sixteenth century.

Also discussed are the arrangement of the chapters and verses in the Wycliffe Bible, the Tyndale New Testament, the Coverdale Bible, the Matthew Bible, the Taverner Bible, the Great Bible, the Coverdale Latin-English diglot, the Whittingham New Testament, the Geneva Bible, the Bishops' Bible, the Authorized Version, the Rheims New Testament, the Douay Old Testament, the Complutensian Polyglot, Latin Bibles, Hebrew Bibles, and the Greek New Testaments of Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, and Elzevir.