“Before Langton (1150-1228), several people had tried to divide the longer books of the Bible into more manageable chunks. But his version was the one that stuck and is the basis of the chapters we use today.”

Anyone who knows about Magna Carta and King John has probably heard of Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury who brokered peace between the king and his rebellious barons and made the Great Charter possible.

But Stephen Langton has a far greater claim to fame. We take advantage of his deep biblical learning every time we open our Bibles, because he was the one who came up with the chapter divisions we take for granted.

Before Langton (1150-1228), several people had tried to divide the longer books of the Bible into more manageable chunks. But his version was the one that stuck and is the basis of the chapters we use today.

The advantages of chapters are obvious. Apart from making it easier for students, they help us find our way through the text by identifying the different sections of a narrative and telling us where stories and themes begin and end. Not all Langton’s chapter divisions work, which is why some Bibles lay out the text in a way that crosses the chapter heading. But what’s surprising is that 800 years after he did his work, so many of them do.

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