The Chapter In The Bible That Appears Twice
This qualifies in the camp of – you learn something new every day. I learned yesterday that there are two chapters in the Bible that are nearly identical. Not sure if this is common knowledge, but it was news to me. It’s Psalm 14 and 53. Here they are in the NIV version:
Psalm 14
1 The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
2 The LORD looks down from heaven
on the sons of men
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 All have turned aside,
they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
4 Will evildoers never learn—
those who devour my people as men eat bread
and who do not call on the LORD?
5 There they are, overwhelmed with dread,
for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the LORD is their refuge.
7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
Psalm 53
1 The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their ways are vile;
there is no one who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
on the sons of men
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 Everyone has turned away,
they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.
4 Will the evildoers never learn—
those who devour my people as men eat bread
and who do not call on God?
5 There they were, overwhelmed with dread,
where there was nothing to dread.
God scattered the bones of those who attacked you;
you put them to shame, for God despised them.
6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
read this -> http://www.amazon.com/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265298522&sr=8-1
it explains the 4 sources that were combined into the old testament, duplicate stories and all.
Umm, fail.
Whether or not you accept the JEDP theory, it has nothing to do with why this Psalm appears twice.
Well, the word “Yahweh” (translated as “the LORD”) in Chapter 14 replaces the “Elohim” (translated as “God”) in Chapter 53, so the JPED theory that the Jewish religion was being revised (albeit inefficiently) does explain why the verses differ only by a few words. If you ignore the Elohim/Yahweh swapouts, the two chapters only differ by about a dozen words in the Hebrew.
This could also just be from people deciding to make so many different versions of the bible.
As a programmer, naturally the first thing to do was diff them: http://jcromartie.tumblr.com/post/370748932/diff-psalm14-txt-psalm53-txt
Of course this is a translated version — I would expect there to be fewer if any differences in the originals
I think a lot of the problems that the creators of the JEDP system didn’t consider were the problems that the translators created, not the original author(s) of the Bible. For instance, the Jews refuse to even speak YHWH’s name because they feel it would be sacriligeous. Which is completely unbiblical. So the translators of the KJV replaced YHWH with the LORD (all caps so you know it once said YHWH). There are other problems that the original translators created beside this. People believe the apostles changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday (which is completely false) because of a faulty translation in Romans 20:7. You have to understand about the Feasts, and also the italizied words in the KJV, to understand the translation correctly, and why it’s faulty. But, a whole doctrine is created on this faulty translation. Christians believe the verse says “And on the first day of the week…”, when actually it should say “And on the first of the weeks…” My KJV Bible has the word “day” in italics, which means the word wasn’t originally there. The translators added it, and they shouldn’t have. Obviously, the translators weren’t familiar with the Feasts. It’s talking about counting the first sabbath of the feast. (They had to count to 49 Sabbaths, then the next sabbath, the 50th, another Feast would begin). You would never understand this if you weren’t familiar with italizied words in the KJV, and also the Lord’s Feasts.
There are many parts of the Bible that are very similar. 1&2 Kings closely mirrors 1&2 Chronicles, for example.
the bible sucks
[...] I learned something cool today, Psalm’s 14 and 53 are almost identical (in NIV [...]
God inspired the writers to put it in there twice for emphasis, and also to see how long it would take for any of us to catch it.
2 Kings19 and Isaiah 37 are (almost) identical too.
If I was endlessly copying bibles BY HAND all day I’d probably screw up which one was #14 and which one was #53 sometime.
[...] The Chapter In The Bible That Appears Twice This qualifies in the camp of – you learn something new every day. I learned yesterday that there are two [...] [...]
It sounds everyone here as forgotten that the bible was not written in English. It was translated to English – By Men, and their own interpretations.
It’s not surprising to me in the least that a section appears twice in two different places or that it was translated slightly differently in each place.
Just a little thank you comment for the time you put into making this article, not bad at all
psalm 18 2 samuel 22
[...] The Chapter In The Bible That Appears Twice February 2010 16 comments [...]
here’s an Idea maybe the bible is actually a bunch of ideals of a few ppl from many years ago. Developed to make ppl more orderly and controllable. Maybe when they compiled all these texts they made a few mistakes. And maybe that happened because A God had nothing to do with any of it.
You have no Idea brother.. in what you are saying… though the bible was written by 40 different authors in diverse places in different times and situations… but then if you read it… it does not contradict with each other.. because it was written by people that was being moved by the spirit of God… “2 Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. ” may you know God through His words He writes for you.. God Bless