Why I Don't Like Bible "Verses"

I grew up reading the old King James Version of the Bible. I've had many of them. At 41 years old, I still have one of my earliest Bibles from when I was in the first grade. The rich leather scent of its imitation-leather cover fills my head with memories of my early encounters with Holy Writ.

But it wasn't until I started reading the New King James Version (NKJV) in my early 20s that I enjoyed reading the Bible. Before that, I "studied" mostly in that I looked up Bible verses that were referenced in sermons or in literature in order to "prove" whether they said what the preacher or article said they said. I had certain key references I remembered, wrote down, and marked in my Bible to support the beliefs I had. But I didn't always just sit down and read large portions of Scripture straight through.

Here is my theory as to why, and I think it may apply to many others without their realizing it: The way the traditional KJV text is laid out, a line break is inserted after each verse, so that each verse begins a new line of text. (The same can be said of the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible.)



This, combined with a culture of prooftexting by many Protestants and "Bible Christians," led me to view the Bible as a collection of "verses." I was actually taught by leaders in my church (before I was Catholic) that the Bible was like a giant jigsaw puzzle, that you have to assemble all the scattered verses together on a specific topic to understand the "truth." A little here and a little there, you know. Consequently, topical studies were commonplace.



In religious discussions or debates, it seemed people in my tradition ended up slinging Bible verses at their opponents, and they were met by return fire, so that it was raining fiery Scripture verses—and whoever launched the most and best verses came out the victor. That may be an exaggeration, but not by much.

At one point, I read an enlightening book by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart entitled "How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth" (as a Catholic, I disagree with certain of the writers' interpretations, but at the time, the book helped me tremendously to appreciate the art and science of biblical interpretation).

Alongside that book, reading the NKJV (and later, other versions, such as the NIV, RSV, and NAB) helped me to understand that most of Scripture is not a collection of phrases or "verses" to be culled out; rather, it is composed of individual books that follow a train of thought. That's why editors of modern translations group the text into logical paragraphs.




To me, reading paragraphed text makes it less tempting to engage in prooftexting—that is, to pick out a verse (usually out of context) to "prove" a particular interpretation of Scripture. Instead, it makes it easier to see a statement within its broader context within a paragraph, which can be understood within the context of surrounding paragraphs. When considering a verse within the writer's flow of logic, understanding comes much easier. That's why I prefer studying and reading entire books of the Bible rather than culling together scattered verses from all over to make them fit the picture you think the jigsaw puzzle reveals—because, with exceptions such as the Book of Proverbs, the individual books were written with a logical progression of thoughts, in linear fashion—not as a series of standalone verses. We should read them as they were intended to be read.

Otherwise, you get silly interpretations such as this (which I once held):



To help avoid a prooftexter's mentality, there are many who prefer single-column Bibles (shown above) rather than the more traditional two-column layouts. Right now, I still like two columns for easier reading, but I don't think I am stuck on that opinion. I can understand the attraction to single-column text. After all, nearly all other books we read are shown in a single column of text.