Repentance and Righteousness in All of Scripture, by Dr. Jeff Mirus 

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Dec 12, 2023

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org.

As originally written, the books which make up the Bible were not divided into chapters or numbered verses. Though various types of thematic division were introduced at a very early period, the now-standard practice of dividing the books into chapters did not arise until the thirteenth century, with the numbering of verses becoming widespread in the sixteenth. Today, following the most common systems, the Biblical books are typically divided into approximately 1,200 chapters, depending (I suppose) on which books are regarded as canonical.

These divisions are, of course, a great help when it comes to referencing Biblical texts. They are also helpful in the effort (and it is always something of an effort) to divide the text into coherent bite-sized sections which often contain what we might call entire episodes, so that we have reasonable starting and stopping points.  ….