Who divided the Bible into the chapters and verses?

Answer 1

Someone else will give a better answer than this but to get the ball rolling:

The verses refer to the original lines of writing. That's why the verse number often comes in the middle of a sentence. As the original writer started a new line so that line was given a new number. Then when the books of The Bible were translated the verse numbers were given so that scholars could go back to the original text and see if they agreed with how good the translation was.

The books of the bible weren't divided. They were brought together. Each one was written independently and they were later gathered together. I have seen some bibles physically divided into the various books and put together on a book shelf. It is still common to find the Gospels as individual books for study purposes.

The New, or Greek testament was agreed by the Christian church leaders at a council meeting and many books were rejected from being in the bible while others were accepted, so there are several other books around that describe what happened in Jesus' life but the church leaders rejected them as not being truthful, or truthful enough.

Answer 2

The system of chapters that are common today was devised by Stephen Laughton, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1207 to 1228 ( born 1150).

Verses in the Old Testament are based on the work of Rabbi Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus in 1440. New Testament verses are those introduced by Robert Estienne in his Greek New Testament of 1551.