The shortest chapter in the Bible is Psalms 117 The Longest is psalms 119 The center chapter in the bible is psalms 118 There are 594 chapters before Psalms 118 There are 594 chapters after Psalms 118 Add these numbers up and you get 1118 What's the center verse in the Bible, it's Psalms 118:8 It reads, "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man."

Amazing, but I ask is this from the Catholic Bible or Protestant Bible?

-- Jason (Enchanted fire5@aol.com), March 27, 2004

Answers

Protestant. Though the Longest and Shortest Chapters still apply.

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), March 28, 2004.

verses and chapter numbers are not inspired - they came later. just fyi

-- Emily (jesusfollower7@yahoo.com), March 28, 2004.

What do you mean verses and chapter numbers are not inspired? And that the shortest and longest chapters still apply?

-- William (Ducin25@aol.com), March 28, 2004.

Emily is correct. The Chapter and verse numbers in the Bible came later around the 13th Century. Papyrus, the material used to write on at the time of Christ was rather hard to find and expensive. To save space and therefore money, those who copied the Old and New Testaments wrote everything in line/succession with no breaks/spaces between lines, paragraphs, chapters, or books. All the Books in the Bible as we know them today, along with those that weren't accepted into the Canon of Scripture were written down back-to-back with no breaks in the text.

-- Ed (catholic4444@yahoo.ca), March 28, 2004.

To find longest and shortest chapters, you would have to look at the original language, since English will have a different number of letters or words than the original. However, I would guess that what Zarove is saying is that Psalms 117 and 119 are still the longest and shortest chapters in the Bible when compared in the original language. It would be more appropriate to say that they are the longest and shortest Psalms, however, since I think the Psalm division was clear then, while the chapter divisions for the rest of the Bible came later. Also, the order of the Psalms may have varied in Hebrew tradition, I don't know. Correct me if I'm wrong on this...

God bless,

-- Emily (jesusfollower7@yahoo.com), March 28, 2004.