Scripture references and biblical languages

  • Spell out names of biblical books.
  • For scripture references, use a hyphen for any reference spanning two or more verses within a chapter (e.g., John 1:1-18) but use an en-dash for references spanning more than one chapter (e.g., Genesis 1–11).
  • For multiple scripture references in parentheses, use semicolons to separate chapter-and-verse entries and commas to separate verse entries (e.g., Genesis 1:1; 3:1, 5; Jn. 1:1).

General-purpose transliteration conventions should be used for the biblical and other ancient languages (unless otherwise deemed necessary to use Hebrew, Greek, etc), as described in CMS