Tip: verse order in Heb vs. LXX display

[Rod Decker]

I just discovered something that I hadn't realized before. The verse order display of some OT passages is "dynamic" in Accordance, i.e., it will display in a different order depending on how/when you open a given OT text.

 

I discovered this when tracing back an interesting variation of the Decalogue from Mark 10 where Jesus cites 6 commands, but not in the order of the OT. (There are multiple variations in the NT at this point, but they aren't the issue here.) In the OT the equivalent passage, Exod 20:12-17 will display in at least two different verse orders.

 

If you *first* open BHS-W4 or HMT-T, the verse numbers run 12 - 17 in sequence. If you then open LXX, the numbering is 12, 15, 13, 14, 16, 17.

 

But if you *first* open LXX in a new workspace, the verses in the LXX run in sequence, 12 - 17. If you then open BHS-W4 or HMT-T, the verse numbers in the Hebrew text run 12, 14, 15, 13, 16, 17. The same is true of an English text opened at this point.

 

Accordance is being "helpful" here in that the same verse content is always in the same order, but if you're not aware of the above dynamic ordering, you might think that the versification of a given text is different than it actually is. I.e., if you want to know the verse order of, say, BHS-W4, you can't tell unless you open it first in a new workspace. The workspace apparently remembers that sequence also, since if you later close the first text you opened, the verse sequence does not change to the first pane, but remains in the order of the closed text. (If in doubt, you may just have to remember how to use that thing called a "book"--i.e., the paper codex form! )

 

Now most of the time this is not particularly relevant, but if you happen to be working on textual variants and use of the OT in the NT, it can be important to remember.