Changing the versification late in the project

Question

There is a Bible here that is almost finished that uses English versification. A translator on the team told me that if they had it to do over again, they probably would have chosen Original versification, to match the predominantly French Scripture influence in the region. (In case you are wondering, there are good reasons to choose English as well, as it is an Arabic language, and many Arabic versions use English versification.)

What would actually be involved to change the versification this late in the process? I haven’t made any promises, but I would just like to know what is involved, and is this a few hours work or a few weeks work?

I previously made up a cheat sheet of the versification differences between English and Original (French), and attach it here, in case it is useful to any of you.
Versification differences between English and French translations of the Bible.pdf (51.7 KB)

Answer 1

I’ve had more experience with this than I ever wanted to have! I had to do a lot of versification changes with several very advanced projects (it’s a long story that I won’t get into now, but we had some major versification confusions). It’s not all that hard, just tedious. I wouldn’t think it would take weeks though. More like hours, or maybe a couple days at the most, depending on the skill level of the person making the corrections.

You first have to set the versification settings correctly (including any custom versification differences), and then run the chapter/verse check. Then you have to go through each error and correct the verse numbers. Fixing each error usually involves changing the verse numbers for every verse in the chapter, so it’s a bit tedious, but not very hard.

I find the easiest way is to set up your windows in 3 columns: your project, a model text (i.e. a translation which uses the versification you want to follow), and the list of chapter/verse errors. Then as you go through the errors, you can check your work against the model text.

For switching from English to Original, the greatest number of differences will be in the Psalms. English versions place the psalm titles before verse 1, like a subtitle, while the Original versification includes them in the text as v 1 (or sometimes verses 1 and 2).

I’m not sure whether this is the sort of information you were looking for. Let me know if I can help with any other information as you decide what to do with the project.

Answer 2

Though I do not know the answer to how much work the versification change would entail, I would suggest the following short-experiment to find out.

1. Do the Chapter/Verse Numbers check on the project as it is now.
   Keep track of how many (if any) missing items exist.
2. Create a new project with Original versification and the same books as are in the project now.
3. Import the books from the original project into the new project.
4. Do the Chapter/Verse Numbers check on the new project.
   Either compare the results to what you got in 1) or judge from the number of errors how long it would take to create a custom versification that would address them.

Answer 3

Thanks for the file. Something like this may eventually be an issue in my translation work as well.
Also, if it helps anyone, here’s a resource I found a few months ago that shows the differences between MTT, LXX, and English versification.7534.Hebrew English Bible Chapter Verse Number Differences.pdf (39.9 KB)

Answer 4

jeffh:

What would actually be involved to change the versification this late in the process?

I would imagine it would require manually looking at every verse the versifications differ and manually moving text around to the correct verses. The problem with using the Chapter / Verse check is that it doesn’t take into account that verses move when the versification changes - what was DEU 13:4 might be DEU 13:3 in the other versification and since there would already be text for DEU 13:3, the check would not know something needs to change.

Comments

In my experience, the chapter/verse check would pick up most of the differences but it may not flag the exact verse(s) where the problem exists. The problem is usually with the whole chapter, not one verse. Like, if Psalm 18:1 in the English is split into Psalm 18:1-2 in the Original, that will change the versification for the whole rest of the chapter. The chapter/verse check won’t flag Psalm 18:1 since there is text there, but it will notice the chapter length is wrong, so it might say that there is a missing verse at the end of the chapter. To fix it, you have to change each verse number for the whole chapter.

Sometimes versification differences will cause two errors in the chapter/verse check. For example, suppose the English had a verse at the end of Deuteronomy 29, but the Original placed the same verse at the beginning of Deuteronomy 30. Your chapter length will be wrong for both chapters, so the chapter/verse check will flag 29 as having too many verses, and ch 30 as having missing verses at the end of the chapter. To fix it, you’d first have to cut and paste the verse into the correct place at the beginning of ch 30, then correct all the verse numbers for ch 30.

So anyway, usually the chapter/verse check picks up on the versification differences. The only thing that the chapter/verse check will not pick up on is where just parts of verses are different. For example, if you have the last half of v 3 in the English is actually the first half of v 4 in the Original, but from v. 4b onward, they are both the same. For those differences, you just have to know where they are and correct them manually. We have some of them listed in our own spreadsheet. I’ll check your file and compare it with ours, and see if we have listed any that you’ve missed.