[sword-devel] KJV verse numbering is not universal.

[Brandon Staggs]

Isn't the issue here one of comparison? A standard of verse numbering is
necessary not for doctrinal purposes (since the numbering did not exist when
the words were originally penned anyway), but for easy comparison. If you
want your user to be able to compare what different translations do with
different verses, it is desirable to make each translation conform to a
single standard of referencing. The same goes for linking with commentaries
and other resources. And since every commentary, Bible dictionary, etc that
I can think of uses the KJV verse numbering as standard, it simply makes
sense to make each Bible module conform to that standard. Now, one should
certainly make an effort to indicate where the verse is placed by the
translators if it is not the same as where it is in the program (using a
footnote or just putting the verse reference in []s).

-Brandon

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Paul Johnson" <mpj@ebible.org>
To: <sword-devel@crosswire.org>
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2000 9:08 AM
Subject: [sword-devel] KJV verse numbering is not universal.


> At 10:50 AM 9/4/00 -0700, Chris Little wrote:
> >...  I'm not sure what we'll do for translations with
> >more verses in any given chapter than the KJV since SWORD would map them
> >onto verses in the following chapter, where another verse ought to exist.
>
> This is an important issue to clarify. Consider Romans 14:26 (WEB or MT),
which is equivalent to Romans 16:27 (KJV) or 3 John 15 (NRSV or UBS4), which
is equivalent to 3 John 14b (KJV). Trying to force all Bible translations to
use the KJV versification is a mistake, in my opinion. If you must persist
in this mistake, probably the only really graceful way to handle it is to
include all verses after the last KJV verse in a given chapter as if they
were an extension of the last KJV verse in that chapter. That would stuff
Romans 14:23-26 of the Greek Majority Text and all translations based on it
in Romans 14:23, for example. (The KJV puts Romans 14:24-26 at the end of
chapter 16, presumably because the translators didn't have access to the
majority of manuscripts that put those verses earlier. It makes little
difference in meaning or theology, either way, but it is something that any
good Bible study program deals with gracefully.)
>
>
> _______
>
> Michael Paul Johnson
> mpj@eBible.org    http://ebible.org/mpj