Chapter & Verse

The Geneva Bible (from Wikipedia)

The Bible is divided into chapters and verses and few people doubt the utility of its being so divided. Indeed, the need for some scheme was felt even in the early church, and from that point on various methods were tried (and discarded) over the centuries until the 13th century. As you might expect, the division into chapters came first and verses followed later. It was the English theologian, Stephen Langton, while lecturing at the University of Paris sometime between 1203 and 1207, who divided the Vulgate Bible (a Latin translation) into chapters. A somewhat later version called the "Parisian Bible" became the standard format and carried over into English translations of the Bible.

The division of the Bible into verses started with a Jewish scholar, Rabbi Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus. In about 1447, he divided the Old Testament into verses, but his verses weren't numbered. The numbering of verses as well as the development of verses for the New Testament is credited to Robert Estienne, a French printer-editor. In 1551 he published a Greek-Latin New Testament which he divided into verses. Four years later, he published the Vulgate, using Rabbi Nathan's verses for the Old Testament and his own for the New Testament. The first English Bible to have verses was the Geneva Bible (1560), which followed Estienne's versification. The same system was carried over into the King James Version (1607).

As necessary as this division into chapters and verses may be, it also poses obstacles to understanding the content of the Bible. There is a very real tendency among average readers and scholars to read verses and chapters as isolated units, esp. in relation to material just before and after the verse or chapter in question. This division has also opened the door for proof-texting, which allows anyone to think anything they want and still find "justification" for their improbabilities in Scripture by citing particular verses, often lifted out of context. We tend to forget, in sum, that the division of the Bible into chapters and verses is an entirely artificial construct.

For further information on chapters & verses in the Bible see (here).