Dueling Bible Verses

Chapter and Verse

There are quite a few instances in Gunsmoke
where people argue by quoting Bible verses at each other.
One example is in 'Kangaroo,' where Matt quotes Micah 6:8—
"What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy god,"
after Ira Scurlock abuses Chester physically
and with misguided quotations of scripture.
It turns out there is actually a tradition
of this Bible-quoting one-upsmanship in cowboy movies.
One example is in The Boy from Oklahoma (1954),
where sheriff Will Rogers, Jr. 'disarms' drunken Lon Chaney, Jr.,
who is shooting up a saloon, by matching him verse for verse.

In 'The Daniel Barrister Story,' an episode of Wagon Train,
Charles Bickford plays a believer who refuses to allow
his sick wife a doctor, although a similar situation
has already claimed the life of their daughter.
Roger Smith, a young physician two months out of medical school,
is the son of a minister. If ye foresee not the makings of a great bout
of Dueling Bible Verses, then ye knoweth not thine scriptural events.
Yea, such citing and citating the prairie had not heard
until April 16, 1958, and may never hear again.

In The Big Valley episode 'The Other Face of Justice,'
blustery bigmouth Nick Barkley quotes Hosea 8:7--
"For they have sown the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind."

Yes, eight.
In the Escape horror episode "The Loup-Garou,"
as the local yokels of a Louisiana bayou hamlet
approach with their torches & intolerance,
the town dipso and religioso Brother Coxie
hurls an unprecented number of Biblical citations at Zeb,
a gentle farmer whom they believe to be a... uh, werewolf:
   "He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it." Proverbs 11:15
   "Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction." Matthew 7:13
   "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup
   At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." Proverbs 23:31-32
   "In the multitude of counsellers there is safety." Proverbs 11:14
   "Love is as strong as death, its jealousy is cruel as the grave." Song of Solomon 8:6
   "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake." 1 Timothy 5:23
   "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Matthew 15:14
   "Whither thou goest, I will go." Ruth 1:16

Besides hypocrisy and sanctimony and misquotation,
another of the ironies of someone spitting chapter & verse into your face,
is that the original texts that make up the Bible,
were never divided into chapters and verses as we know them now.
The sectioning and numbering are later developments.

Returneth ye to Gunsmoke!