QR592.PDF - Trinitarian Bible Society (Australia)

Issue Number: 592 – July to September 2010or the margins of manuscripts. These titlestook the form, in Greek, of ‘aboutsomething’, such as ‘about the Wedding atCana’, and debate continues as to whetherthe modern equivalent of such headingsshould be analytical as in this example, orinterpretative.Many forms of New Testament‘mapping’ were devised by scholars:ingenious, intriguing, and sometimes quiteenlightening. Without further burdeningthe article with definitions, here as asample is information, for the Gospelaccording to Matthew only, fromScrivener’s table of the number and extentof the various divisions of the NewTestament: 9* Divisions in Vaticanus: 10 178* Titloi: 68* Ammonian Sections: 11 355* Stichoi: 12 2,560 or 2,600Be grateful that almost from the beginningof printing we have a settled ‘map’ of thetext of Scripture, which we use easily,almost unconsciously, even assuming it tobe an inherent part of the text. 13VersesMention was made of Old Testamentverses earlier—and scholars are contentthat in our Old Testament, the verses(without numbers) are those of theHebrew Bible, probably dating back to theintroduction of accentuation and to thebeginning of that handmaid to the HebrewBible, the Masorah. 14 There is no trulyancient Hebrew manuscript testimony,Jewish custom being quickly to bury ordestroy their worn or defective Biblicalmanuscripts. However, it is accepted thatfrom ancient times, the end of the Hebrewverse was marked with the unmistakeableclosing accent, the soph pasuq ; (similar inappearance to a colon). However, eventhough thus distinctly indicated, the verseswere not numbered for a long time.Robert StephensOur New Testament verses originatedin the 1551 Greek and Latin Testament ofRobert Stephens. This contained a Greektext, a Latin Vulgate, and the Latinversion of Erasmus, in three parallelcolumns. There were also parallelreferences, Osiander’s 1537 harmony ofthe Gospels, and a thorough index.Stephens’ declared object in dividing histexts into numbered verses was to allowdirect citation of the Latin texts in exactcorrespondence to the Greek. Thisfreedom and precision of referring to the19