The very middle of the Bible.

[Carl Emerson]

Psalm 118:8
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.

 

[Caleb23]

amen

 

[ewq1938]

Psalm 118:8
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.

I had this saved on my computer:

There is the very interesting Psalms 118...
1. Psalm 118 is the middle chapter of the entire Bible.
2. Psalm 117, before Psalm 118 is the shortest chapter in the Bible.
3. Psalm 119, after Psalm 118 is the longest chapter in the Bible.
4. The Bible has 594 chapters before Psalm 118 and 594 chapters after Psalm 118.
5. If you add up all the chapters except Psalm 118, you get a total of 1188 chapters.
6. 1188 or Psalm 118 verse 8 is the middle verse of the entire Bible.

And what is the message found in verse 118? "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man." - Psalm 118:8

 

[ViaCrucis]

I mean, it really depends doesn't it?

Using the 73 books of the Catholic Canon, the middle book is Amos, of Amos' 9 chapters chapter 5 is the middle chapter, and of its 27 verses verse 14 is its middle verse. So Amos 5:14 could be argued to be the middle of the Bible.

Even using the Protestant Canon, sans Deuterocanonicals, using the same methodology it's a bit harder since there's an even number of 66 books. Making the "middle book" the 33rd and 34th books, Micah and Nahum respectively here. Perhaps here we could add together the total number of chapters in each book, there are 7 chapters in Micah and 3 in Nahum, which gets us to 10, another even number. So the 5th and 6th chapters of Micah, what are the total number of verses? Well at least now we have an odd number of verses, 31, so the middle verse between Micah chapters 5 and 6 would be (if I haven't thoroughly confused myself yet) Micah 6:1.

But that's just one way of getting to the middle of the Bible. The idea that Psalm 118 is the middle chapter of the [Protestant] Bible is, not really quite correct either. There are 594 chapters up to, and including, Psalm 116, Psalm 117 is the 595th chapter, and beginning (and including) Psalm 118 to the end of the Bible there are another 594 chapters. Making Psalm 117 the middle chapter of the Protestant Bible based on the number of chapters being counted. Since Psalm 117 is divided into two verses, there is therefore no middle-verse.

The history of the Bible has been complicated. We still don't all agree on even how many books actually belong in the Bible as Christians, that alone is kind of a monkey wrench here. And that doesn't even start to address things like how the books should be counted. Are the Minor Prophets twelve books or one book? Are Ezra and Nehemiah one book or two? Or how about verse numbering? How should we number the verses in the Psalms? Depending on the manuscripts we use and, thus the translations we use, how many verses are there anyway (even assuming we could agree on the number of books in the Bible). Do we include, for example, Acts 8:37 or not?

Ultimately, all I'm really saying is that while Psalm 118:8 is a very fine passage of Scripture. The idea of a "Middle of the Bible" is rather malleable, and we certainly shouldn't attach any special significance to it.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Paulus59]

I had this saved on my computer:

There is the very interesting Psalms 118...
1. Psalm 118 is the middle chapter of the entire Bible.
2. Psalm 117, before Psalm 118 is the shortest chapter in the Bible.
3. Psalm 119, after Psalm 118 is the longest chapter in the Bible.
4. The Bible has 594 chapters before Psalm 118 and 594 chapters after Psalm 118.
5. If you add up all the chapters except Psalm 118, you get a total of 1188 chapters.
6. 1188 or Psalm 118 verse 8 is the middle verse of the entire Bible.

And what is the message found in verse 118? "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man." - Psalm 118:8

Isn't that just so strange hey!

 

[Paulus59]

Psalm 118:8
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.

So true indeed. The Lord won't let you down, but man will.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I had this saved on my computer:

There is the very interesting Psalms 118...
1. Psalm 118 is the middle chapter of the entire Bible.
2. Psalm 117, before Psalm 118 is the shortest chapter in the Bible.
3. Psalm 119, after Psalm 118 is the longest chapter in the Bible.
4. The Bible has 594 chapters before Psalm 118 and 594 chapters after Psalm 118.
5. If you add up all the chapters except Psalm 118, you get a total of 1188 chapters.
6. 1188 or Psalm 118 verse 8 is the middle verse of the entire Bible.

And what is the message found in verse 118? "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man." - Psalm 118:8

But, the thing is that there are, in the modern Protestant Bible, 1,189 chapters in the Bible, not 1,188. Psalm 117 is the 595th chapter, which would make it the middle chapter based on that total number of chapters.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Bob Crowley]

This all depends on whether we take the Christian order of the Old Testament books or the Jewish order of their Hebrew Scriptures, which is what they are.

In the Jewish tradition, the Psalms lead off the the "Writings" (which includes the Book of Ruth in their arrangement) at the end of the Jewish Scriptures.

So the Psalms in the OT only happen to be where they are because the Church organised them that way, and I very much doubt that they cared one way or the other which book or chapter was going to be in the middle.

Psalms | Definition & Facts

Psalms, book of the Old Testament composed of sacred songs, or of sacred poems meant to be sung. In the Hebrew Bible, Psalms begins the third and last section of the biblical canon, known as the Writings. Hebrew Ketuvim).

https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Psalms#ref597804