If you look in a typical English Bible, Joel has three chapters. If you look in the NAB it has four. So what’s the deal? The NAB follows the Hebrew numbering system, most other English translations follow the KJV system. So here’s a little explanation of the difference by the commentators at the Net Bible:

• Beginning with 2:28, the verse numbers through 3:21 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 2:28 ET = 3:1 HT, 2:29 ET = 3:2 HT, 2:30 ET = 3:3 HT, 2:31 ET = 3:4 HT, 2:32 ET = 3:5 HT, 3:1 ET = 4:1 HT, etc., through 3:21 ET = 4:21 HT. Thus Joel in the Hebrew Bible has 4 chapters, the 5 verses of ch. 3 being included at the end of ch. 2 in the English Bible. (cite)

A sidenote or two: BHS stands for Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, which is the standard critical edition of Hebrew Bible which scholars use. ET stands for “English Text.” HT stands for Hebrew Text.

A tireless typer has transcribed the entirety of a 19th Century Catholic study Bible by Fr. George Haydock. He has written introductions to every book and notes to every chapter. And he quotes Church Fathers and other Catholic authors at length. It is quite a resource though I’m sure some of it is outdated. Phat Catholic brought it to my attention on his blog. Check it out if you get a chance.

Catholics like studying. I guess it’s just part of what we do. We like to sit in classrooms, take notes and have study groups. A typical parish bulletin will advertise the weekly Bible Study or a 4-part series on an encyclical or a Catechism group or a Catholic social teaching book group. For us, “learning about The Faith” often means “learning theology.” We don’t usually see a difference between the two. But I think this is a problem.

Christian Life and Theology are two different things. In theology we learn about God, about the Church, about the Bible. But when we study Christian Life we learn how to be a Christian, how to pray, how to act rightly in different situations, how to live for God. The study of Christian Life should take precedence over the study of theology in the life of the average Catholic. We should be spending our time and mental energy learning how to love God and live for Him, not simply learning about Him. There’s a big difference.

Update 3/28/08: I just read an essay by Canon Drinkwater, a 20th Century English catechist, about how to teach the faith. He argues that the faith should be taught as something to be done not just something to be learned about. He says that if someone sees his faith as something to do then it becomes inherently more interesting and relevant. I think that’s a profound insight. Christianity must be done, practiced, lived out not just read about, learned or studied.

When Jesus gets baptized in Matt 3:16, we get this snippet: “the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him” (ESV).

First, a couple textual notes. The phrase “to him” does not appear in all manuscripts, not that it really matters except, I’d like to know who the “him” is. Presumably it is the same as the “he” in “he saw.” Also, the English pronoun “he” is embedded in the Greek verb since Greek does not need pronouns to express the number and person of the subject.

So is the “he” Jesus or John the Baptist? On my first reading I thought it was Jesus, but then I read John 1:32 where it says: “And John bore witness: ‘I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.” (ESV)

So, the “he” in Matt 3:16 is John the Baptist, not Jesus. John is the one who sees the dove come to rest on Jesus, not Jesus himself.

I think it would be helpful if English Bible editions added a footnote clarifying the antecedent of “he” in Matt 3:16. It would make the whole thing less confusing for all of us.

Reading the Bible always challenges our ability to read in context, think in context and make the right connections. You have to remember when the book you’re reading was written (which is always a matter of debate), who it was written to, what the political context was, what the theological context is, how it relates to other books of the Bible and on, and on. You get my meaning.

But reading the Bible on a computer is an exponentially more difficult task in terms of reading within context. When you only get 15 lines of text displayed on the screen, no other pages to leaf through, a search box that displays truncated versions of the verses you’ve found through your query–it’s really dang hard to keep your head in the context of what you’re reading. Weirdly enough, it may be a bit closer to how the ancients read–at least how the ancients who could read read. They read the Bible on scraps of parchment and papyrus. They did not even have a well-defined canon of Bible books until well into the Christian era. But since the invention of the printing press we’ve all been walking around with nicely bound single volume editions of the Bible thinking we’re so cool. But it was not always so neat and tidy. Reading the Bible online or in a Bible software program is jarring for someone who grew up reading the dusty volume off the shelf. It is a new experience in the life of the Church.

So I think it’s important to remember to always read in context, even when you are doing a word-search in a Bible software program. And remember that when you are reading the Bible in a “window” or a “pane” on your flat-screen LCD, in some mysterious way you are closer to the ancients than the guy reading the Bible in a nice leather-bound volume. Well, sort of.