Below is from Snopes.com is wrong about the center of the Bible part 2.
I thought I would log this down as some interesting facts about most all versions of the Protestant Christian Bible.
First, let us make some quick points:
1) The verses were added many years after the original manuscripts.
2) But just as much as that is a historical fact there is still something peculiar about the verses when it comes to the middle/center verses of the Bible.
3) And this only works with the Protestant version of the Christian Bible and the verse divisions that have become standard for most protestant churches today which itself is peculiar.
I did some research for there are many differences flying around out there on the internet of just how many verses are in the Bible to begin with. Snopes.com says there is 31,174 verses (as of 03/05/2011) relying upon a poor source that itself admits no real knowledge of how many verses are in the Christian Bible. But Wikipedia seems to have gotten it right. They claim 31,102 verses in the Bible. And they quote this link as a source which is far better than Snopes.com's source. You will notice this site actually logs precisely how many verses are in each book of the Bible.
Now that we know the actual verses in the Bible we can then find the middle verses. There will be two "center" verses since there is an even number of verses in the Bible. There will be the last verse of the first half of the Bible and the beginning verse of the second half of the Bible.
Take 31102 and divide it by two and you get 15551. So the middle verses will be verse number 15551 and 15552 for their will be an equal amount of verses going back from verse 15551 to the verse 1 and going forward from verse 15552 to verse 31102.
So now where do we land? Let us look at the source used by of Wikipedia to help us. There are 13940 verses from Genesis to the end of Job. So we need to go into the Psalms 1611 verses to find the end verse of the first half of the Bible and we land at Psalm 103:1 and so of course the next verse which begins the second half of the Bible would be Psalm 103:2. So Psalm 103:1,2 are the two middle or "center" verses of the Bible and Wikipedia agrees.
Now if you add each digit in the number of verses in the Bible you get 7. 31102 broken down to 3+1+1+0+2 = 7. Right off the bat we think of the 6 days of creation and the 7th day was a day of rest as God completed His work of creation. Is this a hint that the scriptures have been completed and that God has laid to rest his work of divine scripture? Now this may be coincidence that the number of verses add up to 7 but check this out.
Notice that the middle verses are Psalm 103:1,2. Let us add up the numbers there. 1+0+3+1+2 = 7. Interesting. Maybe coincidence or maybe not but check this out.
What gets even more interesting is that the very same digits that make up the total number of verses in the Bible are the very same digits that make up for the middle verses in the Bible. Compare 31102 to 10312. Both have two 1's, a 3, a 2 and a 0. That's kind of weird.
But let us continue with what Psalm 103:1,2 actually says:
"Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD,O my soul, and forget not all his benefits"
Now if we go to the original Hebrew there are 18 words in these two verses. The two middle words turn out to be Shem and Kodesh. Which are the two Hebrew words for Holy Name. Peculiar I suppose but let us focus more on the discussion below.
Now the Hebrew word for the Holy Name as most Christians and Jews would agree is what is called the "tetragrammaton" which means "the four letters" which are the four letters of the Name of God. In the Hebrew they are the letters "yod" "hey" "vav" "hey". Now unlike the English the Hebrew letters have a number and mean something. "yod" happens to be the word used for "hand" in the scriptures. "hey" happens to mean "look" or "behold" and possibly used as a "the" for emphasis. "vav" means "peg" or "hook" or "nail". So if we were to translate the meaning of the "tetragrammaton" via the meaning of "the four letters" it would read something like this:
"hand" "behold" "nail" "behold".
That sure is weird when you consider Jesus hands that were nailed for us to the cross. Consider John 20:25 and Thomas who said "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails...I will not believe." Of course Jesus did show Thomas his hands and Thomas answered "My Lord and my God" to which Jesus responded "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
So in review the center verses of the Bible are indeed peculiar. The center words of the center verses points us to the Holy Name of God which then points us to Christ. Notice this only works if you include the New Testament which contains the gospel of Jesus Christ. So the moral lesson is that with Christ salvation is complete and we can rest assured in Him but take Him out of it and who knows what it all means. Providence, coincidence or chance? I'll leave it to the reader.
God bless....
Values Voter News can be accessed on your mobile phone with ease see Get Values Voter News on your Blackberry, iPhone, Droid or other mobile phones
