atomization of the sacred scriptures

Twenty-first century Christians of every stripe, as well as scholars with or without any faith at all, assume a Bible that is divided into thousands of distinct verses. They think and operate with those divisions as of second nature. It is considered axiomatic that to learn a Bible passage is to learn to cite its book, chapter, and verse, and sometimes even half verse. In written form these citations follow specific rules of style. And with oddly clinical precision, some preachers even include these references in their preaching, as though they were citing case law, or maybe canon law. As I say, thinking of the Bible in this way is now axiomatic. Axioms are useful, but ought to be examined and questioned anew in each generation. For too long we have forgotten this.

The fact that our bibles today are atomized, disintegrated, hacked, into thousands of little pieces, is largely due to the efforts of Robert Estienne, who published his work in the 1550s. There were attempts in this direction even before Luther's time, but it wasn't till after the Reformer's death that Estienne would succeed in applying this versification to the Bible as a whole, and in a way that would become widely accepted. With this timeframe in mind, we can begin to appreciate how very different was Luther's way of viewing the scriptures from the way the modern Christian views the same text. In this sense, Luther has more in common with those who came before him, men as vastly arrayed across the centuries as Bernard, Benedict, Ambrose, and Polycarp, than he does with those who would come after, including the most orthodox of the later dogmaticians.

So what exactly is the difference? Is the older way of reading the Bible a handicap, or an advantage? Despite the commonly held notion that versification aids memorization, learning, and locating texts, one of the things we notice about Luther, as was also true of others before him, is that he somehow managed to learn and memorize the scriptures, and even could claim a real ability to be a locater of passages (as in a living concordance). Franz Posset argues convincingly in his dissertation ("Luther's Catholic Christology According to His Johannine Lectures of 1527") that by mid-career Luther had the entire Vulgate memorized. So the lack of verse divisions does not seem to have been much of a hindrance to him.

The main difference, it seems to me, is that before there were verse divisions, the Christian was much more readily able to see the text according to its natural integrity, and to appreciate its unity. Before the thirteenth century the bible didn’t even have chapter divisions. And so the reader could see an epistle by Saint Paul which actually looks like what it is, a thoughtfully composed letter to the Church. He could see a Gospel that is a unified composition. In one of Hermann Sasse’s brilliant essays on the Missouri Synod (I don’t recall its title or date, though I seem to remember it being included in a green hardcover volume of essays published perhaps by the St. Louis seminary back in the 90s, which I probably lost in our house fire in 05), the astute observation is made that in healthier, more confessional epochs our teachers wouldn’t cite, eg., the Epistle to the Hebrews as though it were a collection of some three hundred bible verses, but actually appreciate its natural unity. The Higher Critics and the biblicists are very different groups, but one tendency they seem to share, if for different reasons, is the atomization of the scriptures. But whatever one’s motivation, it fails to do justice to the text. When we view a book of the Bible as an organic whole, instead of as a big collection of verses, we are more likely to appreciate it as such, and thereby more truly reflect both the Divine origin of the text and the intentionality of the writer. Tempted as we might be to submit the sacred text to our analysis, so as to comprehend it, a much healthier way of approaching the scriptures is to submit ourselves to it, and to pray that it will more fully comprehend us. So utterly does the Word comprehend the baptized child of God that he is in fact a living epistle, as Paul tells the Corinthians, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.

As I say, Luther stands in the tradition of those who learned the Bible without these divisions. And it is worth remarking that he actually bequeathed to us this tradition as well. How so? In one of the most central and classic of all his works, the Small Catechism, he includes much scripture, and it is worth pondering the method of reference he employs in that work. There he teaches us phrases like the following, which I share in the incomparable Schwan translation of 1912.

“What does God say of all these Commandments? He says thus”

“Christ, our Lord, says in the last chapter of Matthew”

“Christ, our Lord, says in the last chapter of Mark”

“As St. Paul says, Titus, chapter third”

“St. Paul says, Romans, chapter sixth”

“Thus writes the holy Evangelist John, chapter twentieth”

“The holy Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and St. Paul, write thus”

“…and feel whether he still have flesh and blood, and that he by all means believe what the scriptures say of it, in Galatians 5 and Romans 7.”

Contrast these phrases, this mode of speaking, with modern style Bible verse proof texts found throughout the Explanation of the Catechism prepared by later generations of Lutherans, in which the catechumen is made to learn references like “2 Pet. 1, 21”, and “2 Tim. 3, 15-17” and “Jer. 17, 5”, and many others. As the former and the latter appear within the same book in our official printings of the Catechism with Explanation, the contrast is quite striking.

We should resist any urge to “fix” what Luther gives us in the Catechism. To decrease confusion, we should also stop referring to the synod explanation of the Catechism as the Catechism. Instead, what we should do is let Luther’s references in the Small Catechism make us pause, and reflect on this more natural approach that he is handing down to us.

Consider also how the Church’s liturgical tradition proves to be a wise teacher in this regard. For, so long as the lector, and the worship committees, refrain from updating and ad-libbing, the humble man in the pew (say, eg., your average brewery worker in Riverwest) gets to hear elegantly vague formulations like these:

“The continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Matthew” (sequentia sancti evangelii secundum Matthaeum)

Or

“A reading from the Book of Esther” (Lectio libri Esther)

Or

“A reading from the Epistle of Blessed Paul to the Romans” (Lectio epistolae beati Pauli ad Romanos)

Or

“A reading from the Book of Wisdom” (Lectio libri Sapientiae), which, by the way, could be a reading from any of the five books traditionally attributed to Solomon (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom, & Ecclesiasticus)

It’s as if the liturgy of the ages were saying to the twenty-first century man, “Just be aware that what you are about to hear is from Luke (or Revelation, etc). You don’t need to take note of what page it’s on in your pew Bible. Just receive with your ears and your heart what I’m about to give you.” And by the way, though I say “just receive” I don’t mean to imply that this is a small or insignificant thing. At this part of the liturgy the Christian is called upon to be engaged with a disciplined attentiveness. For our Lord is present in His Word. Having said that, what is most important in this moment of the liturgy is a holy receptivity, a posture prefigured for us at the Annunciation, when the Blessed Virgin Mary received in faith the Word which conceives in her, and which she was called to bear in this world.

The integrity of that Word is diminished when we literally disintegrate it into ever more fragmented pieces. As Gandalf says to Saruman in The Fellowship of the Ring, “he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.” The bread of the Word, which comes to us as heavenly food, is reduced to crumbs, which can too easily fall to the ground. The Lord would have none of His words fall to the ground. Samuel knew this, the Mother of God knew this, and the Church knows this.