Dave,
Thanks for the clarification. You're definitely in a rare circumstance as compared to most web sites.
In reality, since it's the Bible, there is going to be a duplicate content issue regardless, given how many sites currently and how many more will most likely publish the same content now and in the future. From Eternalministries.org to KingJamesBibleOnline.org, concordance.biblebrowser.com, and so many other sites are all offering this content.
If you can find a way to offer your content in a unique way, and within your own site, offer different versions of it (individual verses compared to entire chapters), then ideally yes, you'd want it all indexed.
How you do that without adding your own unique text above or below each page's direct biblical content is the issue though.
Given this challenge,this is why I offered the concept of not indexing variations. Even if you weren't hit by the Panda update, any time Google has to evaluate multiple pages across sites where the content is either identical or "mostly" identical, someone's content is going to suffer to one degree or another. Any time it's a conflict within a single site, some versions are going to be given less ranking value than others.
So unfortunately it's not a simple, straight forward situation where duplication avoidance can be guaranteed to provide the maximum reach, nor is there a simple way to boost multiple versions in a way to guarantee that they'll all be found, let alone show up above "competitor" sites.
This is why I initially offered what are essentially SEO best practices for addressing duplicate content.
If you don't want to lose the traffic you have now that come in by multiple means, the only other way to bolster what you've got already is to focus on high quality long term link building, and social media.
The link building would need to focus on obtaining high quality links pointing to deep content. (Specific chapter pages and specific verse pages), where the anchor text used in those links varies between chapter or verse specific words, broader bible related phrases, and the LDS brand.
On the other hand, by implementing canonical tags, you will definitely reduce at least a number of visits that currently come in by variation URLs. Will that be compensated for by an equal or greater number of visits to the new "preferred" URL? In this rather unique situation there's no way to truly know. It is a risk.
Which brings me back to the concept that you'd potentially be better off finding ways to add truly unique content around the biblical entries. It's the only on-site method I can think of that would allow you to continue to have multiple paths indexed. Combined with unique page Titles, chapter/verse targeted links and social media, it could very well make the difference.
With what, over 1100 chapters, and 31,000 verses, that's a lot of footwork. Then again, it's a labor of love, and every journey is made up of thousands of steps. ![:-) 🙂](https://mza.bundledseo.com/community/q/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f642.png?v=4jds23d1a2r)