verse vs. pericope
Hey everyone,
Could someone help me understand the difference between 'verse' and 'pericope'.
I guess the other way of asking this question is, What is a pericope and why would I want to use it?
Many thanks,
Matt
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Pericope from The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volumes 1–5
PERICOPE puh-rik´uh-pee [περικοπή pericopē]. From perikoptō (περικόπτω, “to cut around”), pericope (“selection”) is a rhetorical term for a portion of a text set apart for study or to be read in worship, e.g., a passage from the Psalms, a prophetic oracle, part of a narrative, a thought-unit from an epistle, or a parable. See EXEGESIS; LECTIONARY.
MARIANNE BLICKENSTAFF
pericope. From the Greek word meaning “section,” a particular portion of Scripture to be read as a *lesson. Certain ancient manuscripts of the NT, such as Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, have the NT marked into pericopes, and liturgical *readings are attested as early as Justin (1 Apol. 67). See also kephalaia.
Brett Scott Provance, Pocket Dictionary of Liturgy & Worship (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 101.
pe•ric•o•pe \pə-ˈri-kə-pē\ noun
[Late Latin, from Greek perikopē section, from peri- + kopē act of cutting, from koptein to cut—more at CAPON] 1658: a selection from a book specifically: LECTION 1Inc Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).
lec•tion \ˈlek-shən\ noun
[Late Latin lection-, lectio, from Latin, act of reading—more at LESSON] 1608
1: a liturgical reading for a particular day
2 New Latin lection-, lectio, from Latin: a variant reading of a textInc Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2003).
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Matt Leonard said:
I guess the other way of asking this question is, What is a pericope and why would I want to use it?
Here are a couple. Handle with great care. Esoteric in places.
tootle pip
Mike
Now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs. Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS
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Matt Leonard said:
Could someone help me understand the difference between 'verse' and 'pericope'.
And then there are people like myself who can't understand why anyone would use verse except as a location marker similar to the line numbers on legal forms. Basic history:
- By the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Torah was divided into 154 readings for the 3 year reading cycle. Later an alternative 1 year cycle for the Torah became popular.
- Pre-Nicene practice divided the NT into kephalia
- First official lectionaries based on pericopes appear circa 5th century although there is evidence of the use of pericopes - unit of scripture read in a service - from at least the time of Ezra and continued into Christian services..
- circa 1205 Langton divides the Vulgate into chapters
- circa 1330 Jews adopted Langton's chapters for the Masoretic text
- circa 1550 both Christian and Jewish scripture gets verse divisions
Both chapter and verse are arbitrary in nature; pericopes have to be a cohesive unit that can be studied independently.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Chapters are sometimes a sort of large pericope--division by topic or subject. Pericopes are usually smaller and are a cohesive unit. Pericopes often span chapter parts that encompass more than one chapter. Verses are bite-sized chunks of a chapter or pericope. People don't always agree on the constructed borderlines of chapters, pericopes, or verses.
Depending how you look at chunks of thought, each has value for different reasons. All three can be quite arbitrary as both Mike and MJ indicate. All three are added to enhance reading, study, appearance, and reference. None are part of the original text. Enjoy, but use with discretion.
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MJ. Smith said:
- Both chapter and verse are arbitrary in nature; pericopes have to be a cohesive unit that can be studied independently.
Yes ... and no. Certainly chapter and verses are somewhat arbitrary, neither original, but both numeric, allowing sorting etc. Pericopes, however, quite often assume a theology system, which can overlay the writer.
On my neurals, I ran into this early, especially when you can't assume same-author. The neural reads across 25 words at a time, while racheting forward a word at a time (as the writer writes, or sort of).
But not being a pericope person (growing up, not the Bible!!), Matt's 2nd question seemed to get ignored. Does Logos do anything with pericopes, besides dropdowns? Are topics arranged by pericope? Searches?
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Have you played around with the Compare Pericopes tool? Tools > Passage > Passage Analysis > Compare Pericope
And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Mal 4:6a)
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John Connell said:
Have you played around with the Compare Pericopes tool? Tools > Passage > Passage Analysis > Compare Pericope
I think the OP would wonder?
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DMB said:
Pericopes, however, quite often assume a theology system, which can overlay the writer.
Please explain as I cannot make sense of this statement. Pericope as a concept/term comes from Greek literature as essentially a unit that it makes sense to study as a unit. If it isn't a unit of text that is a logical/reasonable unit of study in the context of the entire work , it isn't a pericope by definition. Pericope boundaries are determined by changes in the text.
DMB said:Does Logos do anything with pericopes, besides dropdowns?
Lectionaries are based on pericopes by definition. Therefore, the sermon/homily manager works around pericopes. One could argue that the sermons and commentaries based on liturgical dates are built around pericopes. Lexham has its own pericope set which is built into Factbook ...
DMB said:On my neurals, I ran into this early, especially when you can't assume same-author
What were you using to identify the pericope breaks? The usual criteria:
[quote]
Pericope boundary markers
potential pericope boundary markers
• Narrative structures
o Change of place
o Change of time
o Change of characters
• Structural elements
o Concentric pattern
o Chiasm
o Inclusion
o Parallelism
Wim Weren, Windows on Jesus. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International. 1999.
Usually, a boundary has multiple markers.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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John Connell said:
Have you played around with the Compare Pericopes tool?
I've used it many times as a way to analyze pericope boundaries but I'm not sure I've ever played around with it. What games does it know? Jeopardy, Monopoly, Poker?
I'd like to see a parallel tool reflecting the pericopes of lectionaries.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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GaoLu said:
All three can be quite arbitrary as both Mike and MJ indicate. All three are added to enhance reading, study, appearance, and reference.
Just to make my position clear and to prove I can be as bigoted as anyone:
Units that it makes sense to study:
- word
- phrase
- figure of speech
- clause
- sentence
- paragraph
- structural unit (parallelism, chiasm, . . .)
- pericope
- meta-pericope
- section
- book
Units that it doesn't make sense to study unless they happen to coincide with one of the above:
- verses
- chapters
Not that I've been known to have an opinion on the matter.[8-|]
Okay, I'll admit to having a bit of fun overstating my case. But anytime a reader, teacher, or preacher picks a chunk of text rather than simply going line by line until they run out of time, they are defining a pericope. The question is whether they do it with conscious attention or in a slap-dash manner. The term "pericope" does not need to be in their vocabulary.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Many thanks for everyones help on this.
Makes a lot for sense now.
In His Grace,
Matt
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I've tried the Pericope Tool. But I have not found it helpful for what I am looking for. What I was hoping is that I put in a verse (or verses), and then it tells me the pericope it belongs to for the various translations (ESV, NASB,....) and the corresponding headings.
Let's say I put in Mt 11:28-30, it should say
ESV: Mt 11:25-30 / Come to Me, and I Will Give You Rest
NASB: : Mt 11:25-30 / Come to Me
CSB: Mt 11:25-30 / The Son Gives Knowledge and Rest
In this case, all 3 translation have the same beginning and ending. But I understand that different translations can have different start and end of a pericope. The reason I want this information is to make sure that to understand the context of the verse I am studying, I make sure I read the broadest pericope just in case the smaller pericopes miss out a key verse.
If Pericopes tool doesn't do what I am looking for, if someone knows how to get what I am looking for, please let me know.
Thanks
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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1Cor10:31 said:
If Pericopes tool doesn't do what I am looking for, if someone knows how to get what I am looking for, please let me know.
I'm not sure I understand the question. This is what I get:
Moving on to chapter 12 where there are differences:
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
And then there are people like myself who can't understand why anyone would use verse except as a location marker similar to the line numbers on legal forms.
Count me among your tribe.
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If you would like to compare the pericopes used by commentaries (series), please vote for Create parallel of commentary-based compare pericope | Faithlife
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
If you would like to compare the pericopes used by commentaries (series), please vote for Create parallel of commentary-based compare pericope | Faithlife
This is a good idea. Now there are 2 votes!
I believe in a Win-Win-Win God.
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MJ. Smith said:
And then there are people like myself who can't understand why anyone would use verse except as a location marker similar to the line numbers on legal forms.
Being a book-chapter-verse man.... I guess that makes me an outcast? hmmm.... Course... there are many theories about the Bible... that comes from man... that the Bible just doesn't support... I'm a guessing... [8-|]
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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xnman said:
Being a book-chapter-verse man.... I guess that makes me an outcast?
No, it makes you a person who uses a division that would never have occurred to the author. word-phrase-clause-sentence-paragraph-section-book or dialogue-scene-event all would have occurred to the author.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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For me the pericope sets list looks short.
For example the NET bible is not in the list.
I might get a longer list if I add some resources, but is there a list of resources that could go to the list and provide relevant additional information for the pericopes?
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Veli Voipio said:
I might get a longer list if I add some resources, but is there a list of resources that could go to the list and provide relevant additional information for the pericopes?
I try to remember to check and nag Kyle if any Bibles are missing. I have 42 pericope sets to select from. If you find pericopes missing add it to resource updates in Feedbear and Kyle will take care of it.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I found 25 Bibles in my pericope sets list.
If you could please show your list easily, (if it requires making several screenshots or writing the list manually I might be asking too much, sorry - otherwise FL should be able to provide the list easily) I could check it and I might even buy some resources to get a wider view of the pericopes.
Gold package, and original language material and ancient text material, SIL and UBS books, discourse Hebrew OT and Greek NT. PC with Windows 11
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Veli Voipio said:
I found 25 Bibles in my pericope sets list.
46 for me (15 thereof in German) - I may be missing a few (some in Spanish or older Greek NTs?)
Veli Voipio said:If you could please show your list easily, (if it requires making several screenshots
It does require multiple screenshots, but those were easy to make - trying greenshot these days and it even pastes automatically into Word. The Pericope Tool gives them in groups of 10 - maybe a wiki page could be populated for future reference.
please find attached: 2705.Pericope sets in Logos.docx
Have joy in the Lord!
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Thanks to amber and its multifile upload/insert ... No I don't read any simplified Chinese or Korean and my German is absolutely an embarrassment.There are at least 24 Bibles that are only on one of the lists ... so you can build a collection larger than either of ours.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Thanks a lot to MJ and NB!
I bought the ISV and it provides some small differences, likely useful to me.
NJB is not available for the rest of the world.
TNIV seems to be Chinese only?
TH-THBS1973 seems to be Thai language.
Then I just look forward to the NET set. Hebrew OT and LXX might be also interesting.
Gold package, and original language material and ancient text material, SIL and UBS books, discourse Hebrew OT and Greek NT. PC with Windows 11
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MJ. Smith said:xnman said:
Being a book-chapter-verse man.... I guess that makes me an outcast?
No, it makes you a person who uses a division that would never have occurred to the author. word-phrase-clause-sentence-paragraph-section-book or dialogue-scene-event all would have occurred to the author.
History [or my understanding of it] of verse breaks. The scholar who split the Bible into the units that we now call verses was accused by his son of doing so while riding on the back of an animal. Thus some verse breaks are where the animal stumbled. His intention was of writing the first book to help students find every where in scripture that a given word was used. [a concordance]
Suggestion; Re read this thread and try some of the suggestions and see if they make sense. And, perhaps with time and study, join the club.
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David Ames said:
History [or my understanding of it] of verse breaks. The scholar who split the Bible into the units that we now call verses was accused by his son of doing so while riding on the back of an animal. Thus some verse breaks are where the animal stumbled. His intention was of writing the first book to help students find every where in scripture that a given word was used. [a concordance]
Suggestion; Re read this thread and try some of the suggestions and see if they make sense. And, perhaps with time and study, join the club.
Thanks David.... I had heard a story similar... with a boat... and when the boat hit a rough wave, it started a new chapter. lol
I will add your suggestion to the many others, I have received to become a "conformist" (no sarcasm intended). I always figured... if I walk down the trails they walk... then I will end up where they are. Is that where I want to be? And maybe, the cost of joining the club may not be a price I am willing to pay??? Do I lose my individuality?
But .... I do enjoy the diversity of thinking on the forums.
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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1. As a child I heard the "horseback" theory of chapter/verse division and sort of half-believed it till I doubted it.
2. I always thought of pericope headings as helpful shortcuts to quickly find content--just another subdivision within and among chapters and verses.
3. I am inclined to judiciously note pericopes, chapters and verses, but to choose my own chunks of thoughts for chewing and teaching.
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GaoLu said:
I always thought of pericope headings as helpful shortcuts
I didn't relate headings to pericopes until Logos taught me to ... modifying my definition of pericope slightly. The earliest manuscripts with pericopes/lections marked did so in the margins.
GaoLu said:but to choose my own chunks of thoughts for chewing and teaching.
Which if done thoughtful means you identify pericopes yourself.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Now the NET bible has been added! [8-|]
Thanks to the FL Logos team!
(From my point of view many good things have happened in the last two days. I feel exceptionally happy, but I guess I'll return into the normal Finnish melancholy soon. [:)] )
Gold package, and original language material and ancient text material, SIL and UBS books, discourse Hebrew OT and Greek NT. PC with Windows 11
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Veli Voipio said:
(From my point of view many good things have happened in the last two days. I feel exceptionally happy, but I guess I'll return into the normal Finnish melancholy soon.
I have known 3 Finnish guys, born in Finland, but living in Canada.
2 were melancholy. If you do the enneagram, both were 5s.
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John Kaess said:MJ. Smith said:
And then there are people like myself who can't understand why anyone would use verse except as a location marker similar to the line numbers on legal forms.
Count me among your tribe.
And here I am....in my 7th dimension world.... studying the context of a verse in the context of the verses around it and in the context of the chapter and in context of the book...
Which shows to go you.... just how messed up I really am![8-|]
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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xnman said:
just how messed up I really am!
Not messed up IF it is an informed, conscious choice. If only by habit . . .
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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