Pilcrow in the KJV?

They are a result of the way an electronic text is formatted.

They were not part of any ancient Hebrew or Greek manuscript.

Rob

 

Origin of the Pilcrow

 

My repro AV 1611 has pilcrows thru Acts 20:36, and, while I haven't had time to look closely, I haven't found any after that verse.

 

Biblegateway.com has an interesting article on the origin of the mark.

[URL="http://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2011/03/punctuating-the-bible-the-pilcrow/]Punctuating the Bible: The Pilcrow[/URL]​

 

There are some breaks indicated in the Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts but the chapter divisions in some of the printed editions of the Masoretic text and in the KJV may not match all of them.

Ginsburg indicated that in the First Rabbinic Bible that both Samuel and Kings are for the first time divided into two separate books in a Hebrew Bible (p. 930). He noted that the division of Samuel into two books and Kings into two books “does not occur in the MSS. nor in the early editions” (p. 45). Arno Gaebelein confirmed that “in Hebrew manuscripts and the earlier printed editions of the Hebrew text, both of the Books of Samuel appear as one; the same is true of the Book of Kings” (Annotated Bible, p. 131). In the introduction to a Jewish commentary on Samuel edited by Cohen, it is noted that the division of Samuel into two books “is unknown to the Talmud and Hebrew MSS, and was first introduced into the Hebrew Bible by the Venetian printer Daniel Bomberg in his edition dated 1516. He had taken it over from the Vulgate which, in turn, had borrowed it from the LXX” (p. ix).


David Ewert affirmed that "Bomberg's Bible had the Christian chapter divisions, as these were found in the Vulgate" (From Ancient Tablets, p. 94). Ginsburg observed that those Christian chapter divisions in Bomberg’s were given in Roman numerals in the margin (Introduction, p. 26). Ginsburg indicated that “no fewer than 162” of the Christian chapter divisions “are positively contrary to the Massorah, inasmuch as the editors who introduced them into the text have made breaks for them which are anti-Massoretic” (p. 29).

 

Yes, the 1611 edition of the KJV only has pilcrows [paragraph markings] to that point. It is a mystery or unknown for certain why the rest of the New Testament in the 1611 does not have them.

If either Miles Smith or Thomas Bilson, the co-editors who went over the 1611 text, was responsible for them, it could be possible that they were instructed to turn their editing of the work of the translators over to Archbishop Bancroft or to the printers before they had time to finish inserting the rest of the pilcrows.

 

Or, maybe Barker ran outta pilcrow type pieces, as they weren't something he used every day.

Years ago, when I got my first KJV edition with pilcrows in it, I didn't know what they were, and so I asked one of my old English teachers. She had to place a call to Marshall University, where their staff found a professor who knew what they were.

Here's the Unicode symbol:
U+00B6 ¶ pilcrow sign (HTML: ¶ &para.