Bible as Book in the Digital Realm

Abstract:Ever since the invention of the printing press and moveable type in the late fifteenth century, the Bible has been perceived as a very physical and unified book, THE book of all books. Between two covers, the church (and notably not the synagogue) now had the word of God in objective tangible form. Most important, this book was reprinted in exactly the same form with essentially the same text tens of thousands of times, so that this one book provided a point of unity for churches and largely Christian cultures alike. Over the next five centuries, the Bible came to be the most widely distributed book in history, from family rooms to hotel nightstands. The physical Bible was ubiquitous, reinforcing its authority as the tangible word of God bound in one book. But at the beginning of the twenty-first century, digital technology made it possible to download the Bible as a digital file that could be read on digital displays. In this essay, I will examine how the digitized Bible has resulted in an unbound intangible book displayed one screen at a time. The Bible has become a fragmented book in its digital form that has profound implications for perceptions of its authority, content, and interpretation.