James:
Did you know that the Biblical "chapter and verse" arrangement is
relatively new to the Bible? Perhaps only about three or four hundred
years. What's more, there are serious problems with it for theologians.
Chapters have cut off thoughts in the middle of an idea, and length of
chapters is very irregular. Finally, chapter names are not very helpful
when they refer, say, to Obadiah because most people don't know where
that is in the Bible. The books are arranged somewhat randomly just like
cases. This could be one advantage of volume and page number, because it
actually identifies a precise location of an item.
Are you proposing numbering cases sentence by sentence? Why? How are
Chapter numbers in your Biblical example different from page numbers? Do
you expect cases to be reprinted to the same extent as the bible or the
constitution? They each have been republished millions of times by
different publishers and printers. I can't see cases, particularly the
whole body of case law being republished that many times.
Richard Leiter
Howard University
On Tue, 6 Dec 1994, James Quinn wrote:
> This is the kind of posting that SHOULD put an abrupt end to the
> discussion, for the sole reason that it is so perfectly argued that
> it stands outside the realm of refutability.
>
> > . . . If I say "Genesis 11:7", you, I, and anyone else with a
> > Bible can find the same cite . . .
> >
> > . . . "U.S. Constitution, Art III, Sec. 2" points to the same
> > place regardless of whether we have the original or a reprinted
> > copy. "U.S. Constitution, p. 12" is futile unless we have the same
> > precise copy of the Constitution.
>
> Excellent examples, elegantly combined. Law and religion are so much
> alike: both are part of our overall complex of social control
> mechanisms, and the basic texts of each are timeless, bound to be
> reprinted and republished over and over through the ages. "Magna
> Carta, p.3" "Bhagavad Gita, p.6." "Institutes of Justinian, p.15."
> Page numbers seem plausible in the context of U.S. court decisions
> only because the whole body of material came into being in our own
> historical epoch, and has been republished in only a few
> comprehensive editions. The problems involved are more obvious when
> you look at, e.g., the code of Hammurabi. Specialists might care to
> know precisely which clay tablet a given text under consideration
> came from, but for purposes of locating a specific passage in
> translation, the average reader would find the information useless.
>
> The changes we are seeing in the way written words are stored and
> distributed are in some ways more radical than the change from clay
> tablets to paper, or from handwritten text to movable type.
> Ironically, as you point out so well, this much more ancient and
> time-honored method of citation is clearly the superior choice for
> this radically new medium. But it makes good sense when viewed from
> one perspective: the system of "chapters and verses" used in the
> Bible came into being at a time when writing was all done by hand,
> and there was no reasonable possibility of producing thousands of
> copies with identical page breaks. Electronic media are more like
> this than they are like modern book publishing. Mosaic reformats
> http text to fit the window and font size every time a document is
> pulled up. Each iteration of the text breaks up differently. Every
> hardcopy printout breaks up differently, just as every manuscript did
> in the days before printing.
>
> Our ancestors devised a system for handling this which has stood the
> test of millennia. What you are proposing is nothing more than a
> return to the norm after a brief period of aberration. The revolution
> we are witnessing marks a return to the fluidity and flexibility of
> media in which citations based on paragraph numbers (or "chapters and
> verses") thrived, will likely thrive again.
>
> > Indeed, the signs are perhaps too evident. Your article, in
> > this medium, had no page numbers, nor did my reply.
>
> If I ever need a lawyer to argue a tricky case for me in Wisconsin,
> I'll give you a call!!
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------
> James Quinn, Reference Librarian, Gonzaga University School of Law
> james@gulaw.gonzaga.edu / (509) 484-2833 fax / (509) 484-6092 voice
>
Richard Leiter
Allen Mercer Daniel Law Library
Howard University
202-806-8045
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