Question #108095. Asked by picqero.
Last updated Sep 09 2016.
With the passage of time, however, the need arose in connection with biblical texts to delimit the sections that were about the size of large paragraphs, both because of the necessity to be able readily to locate a passage in the text and because of the desirability to have units of this magnitude stand out clearly. Thus in the Old Testament, even as far back as the time of Qumran, the text was divided into sections called parashoth.
Verse divisions within these parashoth came in during the Mishnaic period (c. A.D. 200) when it was necessary to intersperse the Hebrew reading with an Aramaic translation so the hearers could understand. The amount of Hebrew that was read before the translation was given in Aramaic became the verse divisions in the the Old Testament, and around A.D. 500 these were signified by the soph pasuq ( : ) that still appear in the Hebrew text.
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