[sword-devel] KJV2006 progress report

[Chris Little]

Troy,

The assumption you make, for the KJV and for the NASB, is that the 
translators and typesetters simply had no clue what they wanted or 
completely failed to express it. It's the assumption that they were 
completely incompetent. But they weren't.

Typesetters have a variety of methods of expressing new paragraphs in 
different environments including one or more of: pilcrows, indentation, 
blank lines (or just slightly increased leading), dropped caps (of the 
text or of, e.g., verse/chapter numbers), etc.

In both the KJV and its genetic descendant, the NASB, every single 
chapter, without exception, begins a new paragraph. Even Rev 13.1. And 
yes, the first paragraph of Rev 13.1 is half a verse long. This isn't 
even a remotely novel way of handling paragraphing around the Rev 12-13 
boundary. VERY few printed works actually represent the final paragraph 
of Rev 12 as extending into Rev 13, and they do so by putting the Rev 13 
verse numeral before the start of Rev 13.1b, not at the beginning of Rev 
13. So, even there, it's generally safe to assume every chapter mark 
indicates the start of a new chapter. (Note: This is not a blanket 
statement that every Bible starts a new chapter with a new paragraph; I 
only assert that that holds for the KJV and NASB.)

--Chris


Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
> Yes, <p/> is meant to be a paragraph marker, as is <milestone 
> type="x-p">.  I don't think <pb/> matches appropriately.
> 
> Chris and I disagree on this one a bit.  I disagree that every chapter 
> in the KJV should be considered a new paragraph.  There are serious 
> interpretation errors implied with chapter/verse markers, as I think we 
> all agree.  Placing a <p> at the start of each chapter implies the 
> translators of the text truly agree that the paragraph does begin at the 
> chapter start.  He may be correct about the KJV printed Bible.  Maybe 
> they do imply with whitespace that they think a paragraph marker begins 
> at each chapter.  Maybe not.  Maybe their use of the pilcrow, ¶, 
> paragraph symbol ma-thingy is their 'markup' for showing where they 
> believe a new paragraph begins.  I just don't know, but I would be 
> hesitant to imply SOMEONE thinks each chapter starts a new paragraph.  I 
> believe this discussion first came up when looking at markup received 
> from Lockman for the NASB.  In my conversion, there was NO WAY to 
> logically deduce where paragraph marker began.  Sometime they were 
> implied by start of chapter.  Sometimes they were very much NOT implied 
> by start of chapter (e.g. Rev 13:1, which has a paragraph break midway 
> through verse 1).  I wanted to stay true to the text, so I use paragraph 
> milestones.  I would rather stay true to the author's intent for the 
> Biblical Text than have well-formed compliant markup.  I could try to 
> make educated decision, but it is not my place to usurp authority to 
> make decision regarding their text-- especially when it might carry the 
> weight of the Lockman translation committee if given to someone else. 
> These are the equivalent of modern day scribal errors done with the same 
> honest motives as ancient scribes.