tyrtl04

A friend was talking to one of his friends the other day. He asked what kinds of books she likes to read, and she replied "Scripture" and told him her favorite verse - Psalm 119:37 (Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, And revive me in Your ways.). They talked a little longer, but apparently at one point he referred to the verse as a passage, and she corrected him, saying that it is scripture.

Honestly I didn't realize there was a difference. Isn't scripture just a broad word for the entire bible while passage refers to just a verse or two?

Martian Astronomer

Well, strictly speaking, any snippet of a written or spoken work could be considered a "passage." "Scripture" can refer to either the body of religious text, or a specific passage in the text. In the 20 years I spent in various fundamentalist/evangelical circles, though, I've heard "passage" and "scripture" used pretty much interchangeably. The phrase "passage of scripture" is pretty common, too.

I really have no idea what your friend's friend is on about. My guess is that she either comes from an environment where they just never refer to bible verses as "passages," or she heard a really wacky sermon where the preacher tried to make some kind of ad-hoc distinction between the two terms. This is, of course, just speculation.

Imnotspecial

You are correct.

Doug Shaver

What Martian said. I don't have even a good guess about what she was thinking. Possibly, she was under the impression that scripture must not be referred to as anything but scripture.

"Scripture" is always correct when referring to any quotation from the Bible, but that doesn't make other terms incorrect.

Trout

That's my bet.

Besides, anyone who says she reads scripture for her favorite books should not be spoken to any longer as she is clearly a loonbar.