Chapter and verse

How this was made, and what it leaves out

Every published volume except the Bibles themselves was read for references of the shape a book name or its abbreviation, a chapter, and optionally verses — "Psalm xci", "Gen. i. 26, 27", "Rev. xxi. 8", "1 Cor. xiii. 12", "Apoc. xxi", "St. Matt. v. 3-9", "Psalms viii., xxi, xxvii" — in Roman or Arabic numerals, with the ordinals of the numbered books. A name alone is never taken: "Rev." is also Reverend, "Col." Colonel, "Gen." General, "Job" a job, "John" a man, "Numbers" a plural; so a name must be followed by a numeral that ends there, and a name that is an ordinary word must be followed by a Roman chapter or a chapter:verse pair, never a bare Arabic number. The chapter must exist in the book and the verse in the chapter, by the King James's own count (the Douay's for its seven books), which is what keeps "Dan. 1900" out. A capital I after a name is the pronoun, not chapter one. The abbreviations that are everyday words or labels — Rev., Ex., Col., Gen., Is., Bar., Mac., Tit., Mat., Tim., Pet., Jas. — are held to the same rule, after a government form's "Rev. 1" was read as the Apocalypse; and the shelf of declassified records is not scanned at all.

What this misses: a psalm named by its opening words ("the psalm Domine Dominus noster"), a verse quoted without its reference, and a reference broken across a page. What it cannot judge is why a volume cites a verse; that is in the sentence, which is why the sentence is printed. 2,439 volumes were scanned on 2026-10-29; every quoted sentence is checked against the page it cites before the page is built. The verse text is the King James's; the reference beside each verse opens the same verse in seven versions side by side.