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
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