Bible citation

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A citation from the Bible is usually referenced with the book name, chapter number and verse number. Sometimes, the name of the Bible translation is also included. There are several formats for doing so. [1]

Contents

Common formats

A common format for biblical citations is Book chapter:verses, using a colon to delimit chapter from verse, as in:

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen. 1:1).

Or, stated more formally, [2] [3] [4] [lower-alpha 1]

Book chapter for a chapter (John 3);
Book chapter1chapter2 for a range of chapters (John 13);
book chapter:verse for a single verse (John 3:16);
book chapter:verse1verse2 for a range of verses (John 3:1617);
book chapter:verse1,verse2 for multiple disjoint verses (John 6:14, 44).

The range delimiter is an en-dash, and there are no spaces on either side of it. [3]

This format is the one accepted by the Chicago Manual of Style to cite scriptural standard works. The MLA style is similar, but replaces the colon with a period.

Citations in the APA style add the translation of the Bible after the verse. [5] For example, (John 3:16, New International Version). Translation names should not be abbreviated (e.g., write out King James Version instead of using KJV). Subsequent citations do not require the translation unless that changes. In APA 7th edition, the Bible is listed in the references at the end of the document, which has changed since previous versions. [6] [7]

Citations in Turabian style requires that when referring to books or chapters, do not italicize or underline them. The book names must also be spelled out. For example, (The beginning of Genesis recounts the creation of our universe.) When referring directly to a particular passage, the abbreviated book name, chapter number, a colon, and verse number must be provided. [8] Additionally, the Bible is not listed in the references at the end of the document and the edition of the Bible is required when citing inside parentheses. For example, (Eph. 2:10 [New International Version]).

Punctuation

When citations are used in run-in quotations, they should not, according to The Christian Writer's Manual of Style, contain the punctuation either from the quotation itself (such as a terminating exclamation mark or question mark) or from the surrounding prose. The full-stop at the end of the surrounding sentence belongs outside of the parentheses that surround the citation. For example: [4]

Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him! (John 19:15).

The Christian Writer's Manual of Style also states that a citation that follows a block quotation of text may either be in parentheses flush against the text, or right-aligned following an em-dash on a new line. For example: [4]

These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33 NASB)
These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.

John 16:33 NASB

Abbreviating book names

The names of the books of the Bible can be abbreviated. Most Bibles give preferred abbreviation guides in their tables of contents, or at the front of the book. [3] Abbreviations may be used when the citation is a reference that follows a block quotation of text. [4]

Abbreviations should not be used, according to The Christian Writer's Manual of Style, when the citation is in running text. Instead, the full name should be spelled out. Hudson observes, however, that for scholarly or reference works that contain a large number of citations in running text, abbreviations may be used simply to reduce the length of the prose, and that a similar exception can be made for cases where a large number of citations are used in parentheses. [4] [9]

There are two commonly accepted styles for abbreviating the book names, one used in general books and one used in scholarly works. [4]

Electronic editions of Bibles use internal abbreviations. Some of these abbreviation schemes are standardized. These include OSIS and ParaTExt USFM.

Roman numerals

Roman numerals are often used for the numbered books of the Bible. For example, Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians may be written as "I Corinthians", using the Roman numeral "I" rather than the Arabic numeral "1". [3] The Christian Writer's Manual of Style, however, recommends using Arabic numerals for numbered books, as in "2 Corinthians" rather than "II Corinthians". [4]

Editions

The Student Supplement to the SBL Handbook of Style published by the Society of Biblical Literature states that for modern editions of the Bible, publishers information is not required in a citation. One should simply use the standard abbreviation of the version of the Bible (e.g. "KJV" for King James Version, "RSV" for Revised Standard Version, "NIV" for New International Version, and so forth). [9]

Multiple citations

The Student Supplement to the SBL Handbook of Style recommends that multiple citations be given in the form of a list separated by a semicolon, without a conjunction before the final item in the list. When multiple consecutive citations reference the same book, the name of the book is omitted from the second and subsequent citations. For example: [9]

John 13; 3:16; 6:14, 44

Citing non-biblical text in Bibles

Some Bibles, particularly study bibles, contain additional text that is not the biblical text. This includes footnotes, annotations, and special articles. The Student Supplement to the SBL Handbook of Style recommends that such text be cited in the form of a normal book citation, not as a Bible citation. For example: [9]

Sophie Laws (1993). "The Letter of James". In Wayne A. Meeks; et al. (eds.). The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version, with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books . New York: HarperCollins. pp. 2269–2270.

See also

Notes

  1. Five books have a single chapter: Obadiah, Philemon, 2 & 3 John, Jude. In many printed editions, the chapter number is omitted for these books, and references just use the verse numbers.

Related Research Articles

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word abbreviation itself can be abbreviated as abbr., abbrv., or abbrev.. It may also consist of initials only, a mixture of initials and words, or words or letters representing words in another language. Some types of abbreviations are acronyms or grammatical contractions or crasis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Epistle of Peter</span> Book of the New Testament

The First Epistle of Peter is a book of the New Testament. The author presents himself as Peter the Apostle. The ending of the letter includes a statement that implies that it was written from “Babylon”, which may be a reference to Rome. The letter is addressed to the "chosen pilgrims of the diaspora" in Asia Minor suffering religious persecution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Epistle of John</span> Book of the New Testament

The First Epistle of John is the first of the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, and the fourth of the catholic epistles. There is no scholarly consensus as to the authorship of the Johannine works. The author of the First Epistle is termed John the Evangelist, who most modern scholarsbelieve is not the same as John the Apostle. Most scholars believe the three Johannine epistles have the same author, but there is no consensus if this was also the author of the Gospel of John.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King James Version</span> 1611 English translation of the Bible

The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV) is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I. The 80 books of the King James Version include 39 books of the Old Testament, 14 books of Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Septuagint</span> Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures

The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and often abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

<i>The Chicago Manual of Style</i> Academic style guide for American English

The Chicago Manual of Style is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 17 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citation</span> Reference to a source

A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of acknowledging the relevance of the works of others to the topic of discussion at the spot where the citation appears.

A note is a string of text placed at the bottom of a page in a book or document or at the end of a chapter, volume, or the whole text. The note can provide an author's comments on the main text or citations of reference work in support of the text.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">APA style</span> Academic style and writing format

APA style is a writing style and format for academic documents such as scholarly journal articles and books. It is commonly used for citing sources within the field of behavioral and social sciences, including sociology, education, nursing, criminal justice, and anthropology, as well as psychology. It is described in the style guide of the American Psychological Association (APA), which is titled the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The guidelines were developed to aid reading comprehension in the social and behavioral sciences, for clarity of communication, and for "word choice that best reduces bias in language". APA style is widely used, either entirely or with modifications, by hundreds of other scientific journals, in many textbooks, and in academia. The current edition is its seventh revision.

An outline, also called a hierarchical outline, is a list arranged to show hierarchical relationships and is a type of tree structure. An outline is used to present the main points or topics (terms) of a given subject. Each item in an outline may be divided into additional sub-items. If an organizational level in an outline is to be sub-divided, it shall have at least two subcategories, although one subcategory is acceptable on the third and fourth levels, as advised by major style manuals in current use. An outline may be used as a drafting tool of a document, or as a summary of the content of a document or of the knowledge in an entire field. It is not to be confused with the general context of the term "outline", which a summary or overview of a subject, presented verbally or written in prose. The outlines described in this article are lists, and come in several varieties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chapters and verses of the Bible</span> Divisions of books of the Bible

Chapter and verse divisions did not appear in the original texts of Jewish or Christian bibles; such divisions form part of the paratext of the Bible. Since the early 13th century, most copies and editions of the Bible have presented all but the shortest of the scriptural books with divisions into chapters, generally a page or so in length. Since the mid-16th century, editors have further subdivided each chapter into verses – each consisting of a few short lines or of one or more sentences. In the King James Version (KJV) Esther 8:9 is the longest verse and John 11:35 is the shortest. Sometimes a sentence spans more than one verse, as in the case of Ephesians 2:8–9, and sometimes there is more than one sentence in a single verse, as in the case of Genesis 1:2.

1 Esdras, also Esdras A, Greek Esdras, Greek Ezra, or 3 Esdras, is the ancient Greek Septuagint version of the biblical Book of Ezra in use within the early church, and among many modern Christians with varying degrees of canonicity. 1 Esdras is substantially similar to the standard Hebrew version of Ezra–Nehemiah, with the passages specific to the career of Nehemiah removed or re-attributed to Ezra, and some additional material.

Parenthetical referencing is a citation system in which in-text citations are made using parentheses. They are usually accompanied by a full, alphabetized list of citations in an end section, usually titled "references", "reference list", "works cited", or "end-text citations". Parenthetical referencing can be used in lieu of footnote citations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chester Beatty Papyri</span> Collection of 3rd-century Christian manuscripts

The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri or simply the Chester Beatty Papyri are a group of early papyrus manuscripts of biblical texts. The manuscripts are in Greek and are of Christian origin. There are eleven manuscripts in the group, seven consisting of portions of Old Testament books, three consisting of portions of the New Testament, and one consisting of portions of the Book of Enoch and an unidentified Christian homily. Most are dated to the 3rd century CE. They are housed in part at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, and in part at the University of Michigan, among a few other locations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Page numbering</span> Numbering of a book or document

Page numbering is the process of applying a sequence of numbers to the pages of a book or other document. The number itself, which may appear in various places on the page, can be referred to as a page number or as a folio. Like other numbering schemes such as chapter numbering, page numbers allow the citation of a particular page of the numbered document and facilitates to the reader to find specific parts of the document and to know the size of the complete text.

<i>The Books of the Bible</i> (book) Bible with chapter and verse numbers removed

The Books of the Bible is the first presentation of an unabridged committee translation of the Bible to remove chapter and verse numbers entirely and instead present the biblical books according to their natural literary structures. This edition of the Bible is also noteworthy for the way it recombines books that have traditionally been divided, and for the way it puts the biblical books in a different order.

<i>A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations</i> Style guide for writing

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is a style guide for writing and formatting research papers, theses, and dissertations and is published by the University of Chicago Press.

A biblical canon is a set of texts which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible.

Romans 14 is the fourteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It is authored by Paul the Apostle, while he was in Corinth in the mid-50s AD, with the help of an amanuensis (secretary), Tertius, who adds his own greeting in Romans 16:22. Protestant Reformer Martin Luther summarised this chapter as Paul's teaching that "one should carefully guide those with weak conscience and spare them; one shouldn't use Christian freedom to harm, but rather to help, the weak". Lutheran theologian Johann Albrecht Bengel says that Paul "refers all things to faith".

The Logos Complete Study Bible is a study Bible published in 1972 by Logos International. It is based upon The Cross-Reference Bible, published in 1910.

References

  1. "HOW TO CITE THE BIBLE*. Guide for Four Citation Styles: MLA, APA, SBL, CHICAGO" (PDF). jbu.edu. John Brown University. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 28, 2021. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
  2. Gary W. Fick (2008). "Abbreviations and Citation of Books in the Bible". Food, Farming, and Faith. SUNY Press. p. 175. ISBN   9780791473832.
  3. 1 2 3 4 David Whitbread (2001). "Typography: Citing the Bible". The Design Manual . UNSW Press. p.  209. ISBN   9780868406589.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bob Hudson; Robert Hudson; Shelley Townsend-Hudson (2004). "References, Bible". The Christian Writer's Manual of Style. Zondervan. pp. 358–361. ISBN   9780310487715.
  5. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition . American Psychological Association. 2001. p.  213. ISBN   1-55798-810-2.
  6. "APA Bible Citation". APA Format. December 16, 2013. Retrieved November 7, 2023.
  7. "Religious Work References". APA Style. American Psychological Association. February 2020. Retrieved November 7, 2023.
  8. Marks, Kim. "Henry Buhl Library: Citing the Bible and other Biblical Resources: Turabian Style". hbl.gcc.libguides.com. Retrieved December 3, 2020.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Melanie Greer Nogalski; James D. Nogalski; Sophia G. Steibel & Danny M. West (September 2004). "Biblical Citations" (PDF). In Joel M. LeMon (ed.). Student Supplement to the SBL Handbook of Style. Society of Biblical Literature. pp. 1–2.