L/V 10+ Tip of the Day #334 Sub-verse divisions in Bible references

MJ. Smith

Another tip of the day (TOTD) series for Logos/Verbum 10. They will be short and often drawn from forum posts. Feel free to ask questions and/or suggest forum posts you'd like to see included. Adding comments about the behavior on mobile and web apps would be appreciated by your fellow forumites. A search for "L/V 10+ Tip of the Day site:community.logos.com" on Google should bring the tips up as should this Reading List within the application.

This tip is inspired by the forum post: Bible Notation (e.g., What does Gen 13:7b mean?) - Logos Forums

While the thread referenced came to the correct answer - there are no set rules, eyeball it - I thought I'd share part of the AI engines responses:

BARD said:

here are no specific rules for determining when to divide a verse into subverses, but there are some general guidelines that are followed by most Bible publishers. For example, a verse may be divided into subverses if it:

• Contains a complete thought or unit of information.
• Changes topic or speaker.
• Introduces a new character or event.
• Contains a dialogue or conversation.
• Is very long or complex.

The subverses are typically numbered in alphabetical order, with the first subverse being labeled "a" and the subsequent subverses being labeled "b," "c," and so on.

ChatGPT said:

The determination of subverse divisions within a given translation of the Bible is generally a matter of editorial choice and can vary between editions. These choices are often influenced by a combination of linguistic, theological, and literary considerations. In many cases, the divisions are made to highlight phrases or clauses that can stand alone as a coherent thought or that represent a specific point of emphasis in theological or scholarly discussions.

In translations that adopt the practice, the translators or editors break down the verses based on their interpretation of the text's meaning, its grammatical structure, or its rhetorical elements. For example, a subverse might be determined by:

1. Linguistic Factors: Natural breaks in the text such as conjunctions, semicolons, or other punctuation marks might guide the division.

2. Theological Factors: The division might highlight a doctrinally significant phrase or clause.

3. Rhetorical or Literary Factors: Elements like parallelism, chiasm, or other literary structures may guide the division to isolate a particular rhetorical feature.

Each translation or edition that employs subverse notation would likely have its own guidelines or rationale for these divisions, and as such, the specifics can vary widely. Therefore, it's essential to refer to the particular edition in question for a precise understanding of its subverse divisions.

This reply is worth noting.

Vincent Setterholm said:

There are some cases when letters are used in very specific ways. I can think of the following:

1. When there is a verse in the LXX (or certain other traditions) that is not found in the Hebrew Bible, sometimes that additional material is given a letter to set it off from the Hebrew material.
2. Mostly in lexicons, if the word under discussion appears twice (or more) in one verse, letters (Roman or Greek) can be used to indicate which specific instance is under discussion.
3. Most Hebrew verses can be divided into two parts on the basis of the strong disjunctive accent Athnach. Some can be divided into three parts with the help of another very strong disjunctive accent. Some of the more technical materials will consciously follow these breaks. But since these breaks are quite often logical, even when a commentator isn't fastidiously following the division of the text, often their use of letters will line up anyway.
4. Some commentaries have their own translation of the text presented in an outline form. In these cases, the letters may precisely correspond with their own translation.
5. There are certain verses that have a strong tradition of being broken into pieces in translation, even occasioning the start of a new paragraph in the middle of the verse. Gen 2:4 comes to mind as the classic example (though that is also an example of #3 above). So someone might use Gen 2:4a and b and assume the reader can figure out that a is the part that ends the previous paragraph and b the part the starts a new one.
6. Some translations will make use of letters in the text to show when they are rearranging parts of verses to make them more intelligible in the target language. You might get a sequence of verses like 27a, 28b, 27b, 28a that correspond to 27-28 in the source text, rearranged.