QR592.PDF - Trinitarian Bible Society (Australia)

Issue Number: 592 – July to September 2010Aspects of the Authorised Version:Mapping & Marking of the Textby C. P. Hallihan…he shall write him a copy of this law in a bookDeuteronomy 17.18 1If you were to make yourself Thus, we are not talking about thea copy of the Scriptures— words of the text itself, taking it forword processors aregranted that for most readers of theallowed—what would you include, and Quarterly Record the text would be anwhat would you leave out? Would your edition of the Authorised Version. So nowcopy have chapter numbers, verseour question is, ‘would your copy includenumbers, punctuation, paragraphs or “extra-textual” material?’ Remember thatparagraph marks, words in red, poetry if you say ‘No!’ you will have no versein a different style from prose, and so numbers, no chapter numbers, nor any offorth? Would there be particular reasons the things mentioned above. Even thosefor your answers? If you knew, forprinted Bibles that have declaredinstance, who was going to read your themselves as suitable ‘…to be read ascopy and why (e.g., silent reading alone, literature’ arrange the pages andreading aloud from a pulpit), would it paragraphs by the judgment of editors, andmake any difference what you would not from any consensus of the originaldecide regarding these and quite a few manuscripts. Bibles published as ‘textother choices? These things, which Bibles’, suggesting the unadorned text ofcome under the heading ofthe Bible, could still have all the things‘presentation’, are the work of editors that we have mentioned, but withoutrather than part of the actual Scriptures. chapter headings and margin references.Part One:Mapping the TextThe need to indicate divisions inthe text of Scripture in ways thatare a help to private and publicreading and to the student, has long beenrecognised: even some handwrittenHebrew manuscripts reveal this. Very earlyeditors of the Hebrew texts were content toestablish the ordering of books, making nodivision into sections or chapters. Suchtexts were made up of close-spaced strings15