Expert: Brenda Martin - 6/13/2011

Question
what date or year was the bible cannonized? Is that when the chapter and verse divisions put on the text?

Answer
Subdividing the Bible into chapters and verses was not done by the original writers, but it was a very useful device added centuries later.

The Masoretes divided the Hebrew Scriptures into verses; then in the 13th century of our Common Era chapter divisions were added.

Finally, in 1555 Robert Estienne’s edition of the Latin Vulgate was published as the first complete Bible with the present chapter and verse divisions.
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However the Bible Canon was established much earlier—

The Jewish historian Josephus, in answering opponents in his work Against Apion (I, 38-40 [8]) around the year 100 C.E., confirms that by then the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures (OT) had been fixed for a long time.

The writing as well as the collecting of the 27 books comprising the canon of the Christian Greek Scriptures (NT) was similar to that of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Outside the Scriptures themselves there is evidence that, as early as 90-100 C.E., at least ten of Paul’s letters were collected together. It is certain that at an early date Christians were gathering together the inspired Christian writings.

By the end of the second century there was no question but that the canon of the Christian Greek Scriptures was closed, and we find such ones as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian recognizing the writings comprising the Christian Scriptures as carrying authority equal to that of the Hebrew Scriptures.

all the best
Brenda