The KJB had different verse.numbering than Geneva,
E. W. Bullinger asserted: “We cannot recognize any human arrangements or divisions of books, chapters, or verses, etc. We can take only that division, order, and arrangement which is Divine” (
Number in Scripture, p. 93). E. W. Bullinger noted: “The Book of Genesis is Divinely divided into twelve parts (consisting of an Introduction and eleven
Tol’doth)” (
Ibid.). Bullinger wrote: “It is instructive to notice these divine divisions, and see how different they are from either man’s chapters, or man’s theories as to the Jehovistic and Elohistic sections” (p. 35). E. W. Bullinger observed: “Besides Genesis, the Book of Psalms is the only book which is marked by any similar Divine divisions. It consists of Five Books” (p. 94).
The Companion Bible stated: “Manuscript and Massoretic authorities, the Talmud as well as the ancient versions, divide the Psalms into five books” (p. 720). In Appendix 63,
the Companion Bible stated: “Our English name ‘Psalms’ is a transliteration of the Greek Title of the Septuagint, ‘
Psalmoi’” (p. 87). In this same appendix,
the Companion Bible also noted: ”The translators of the Septuagint arbitrarily adopted a different order [than the order of the books in the Hebrew Canon], and gave the books different names. This was followed by the Vulgate and all subsequent Versions” (p. 90). The book of Chronicles is the last book of the Hebrew canon.
The statement of the Lord Jesus Christ recorded in Matthew 23:35 and Luke 11:51 would refer to this order of the books as found in the Jewish or Hebrew canon. From the death of Abel (Gen. 4:8) would be from the first book of the Jews OT canon [Genesis] to the death of Zachariah (2 Chron. 24:20-22) in the last book of their canon [2 Chronicles]. Did Jesus indicate approval of the order of OT books as found in the Hebrew canon instead of the order of books later introduced in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate?
The Hebrew canon of the Old Testament had either 24 books or 22 books, depending on how the books are divided. The 24 Hebrew order of books in three divisions is as follows: [Law] Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; [Prophets] Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Minor Prophets; [Psalms or Writings] Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles or Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles. The same 24 books of the Hebrew canon are divided into 39 books in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. Beginning around 1516, some Christian printers who printed the Hebrew Old Testament would introduce the different book divisions into their editions. Christian Ginsburg indicated that in the First Rabbinic Bible that both Samuel and Kings are for the first time divided into two separate books in a Hebrew Bible (
Introduction, p. 930). Ginsburg noted that the division of Samuel into two books and Kings into two books “does not occur in the MSS. nor in the early editions” (p. 45). David Ewert noted that Daniel "Bomberg's Bible had the Christian chapter divisions, as these were found in the Vulgate" (
From Ancient Tablets, p. 94). Christian Ginsburg maintained that “the division of the [Massoretic] text into chapters is not of Jewish origin” (
Introduction, p. 25). Christian Ginsburg observed that those Christian chapter divisions in Bomberg’s were given in Roman numerals in the margin (p. 26). Ginsburg indicated that “no fewer than 162” of the Christian chapter divisions “are positively contrary to the Massorah, inasmuch as the editors who introduced them into the text have made breaks for them which are anti-Massoretic” (p. 29). Are the OT book order, book divisions, book names, and chapter divisions of the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate considered to be inspired or a miracle according to claims of numeric pattern advocates?
Do KJV-only advocates try to ignore or attempt to discount the influence of the Greek Septuagint on the KJV’s OT book order, book titles, and chapter divisions? A different OT book order as in the Hebrew canon and different chapter and verse divisions would mess up some claimed numeric patterns.
Considering the fact that a few of the verse and chapter divisions of the 1611 KJV differ from those in the 1560 Geneva Bible, could the printer of the KJV have possibly followed the OT verse and chapter divisions in the printed 1587 Rome Septuagint? Jeffrey Alan Miller maintained that this 1587 Rome Septuagint was the first “edition to be based upon the manuscript known as Codex Vaticanus” (Feingold,
Labourers, p. 230). In this same book, Nicholas Hardy maintained that this 1587 Sixtine Septuagint printed in Rome was “the principal edition which he [KJV translator John Bois] used to study the Greek version of the Old Testament and to translate and revise the King James Apocrypha” (p. 279). Jeffrey Miller referred to “the copy of the Rome Septuagint that [John] Bois evidently used in his work as a translator” (p. 236). Nicholas Hardy noted: “Bois’s copy of this book [the 1587 Septuagint] contains thousands of marginal notes and interlinear annotations in Bois’s neat, distinctive hand” (p. 279). Hardy also pointed out that “the royal librarian, Patrick Young” identified “Bois as the author of the annotations” (p. 280).
