Books of the Bible: Why Do We Write "1" and not "1st"?
@mythociate (21432)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
November 4, 2020 9:42am CST
You know the Bible-books I'm talking about (First- & Second-Corinthians, -Thessalonians, -Timothy, -Peter & -John (with also a Third John)).
This gets asked on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Bible/comments/dsg0q6/first_corinthians_or_one_corinthians/ but the closest they get to 'the rules' is when they say, "Well, it's 'Paul's (or Peter's or John's ... or Ringo's?) First letter to that church or person, so it's 'First' and not 'One.'"
But I've always seen (in Bibles & citations) they just use "1, 2 or 3" (although 'people who know they're reading Scripture' (unlike Trump) still call it "first, second or third").
I've heard you're supposed to write the word (rather than the number) if you use it at the beginning of a sentence.
Anything else?
2 people like this
2 responses
@jobelbojel (36025)
• Philippines
4 Nov 20
I have not seen any pastors quoted on their PowerPoint "first" "second" and others. It is always 1 or 2 when quoting the Bible verses. But they read it as First John, First Cor, First Thessa, First , Second.
1 person likes this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
4 Nov 20
The full title was "The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians" (King James version), so "first" is correct. However, Roman numerals are used for the "shorthand" - I Corinthians. They did not have a shorthand version of the ordinal numbers so the cardinal numbers are used instead.
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@xFiacre (13151)
• Ireland
4 Nov 20
@mythociate I think somehow that the contents of the books might be a bit more instructive than their names.
@mythociate (21432)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
5 Nov 20
Of course. But--among people whom I know know the book--using 'their names' works as a shorthand so that I don't have to say the whole thing or write the whole thing when I'm talking about it with them.
Kinda like Trump tried to do in the picture.
