Sacred Text in an Electronic Age
How the Bible has been regarded in history has in part been a reflection of changing writing technologies. The roll, the codex, and the printed book shape what writing is, how it is socially used, and the way persons think about language and the world. Contemporary Western culture is in the midst of...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
1990
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| In: |
Biblical theology bulletin
Year: 1990, Volume: 20, Issue: 3, Pages: 99-106 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | How the Bible has been regarded in history has in part been a reflection of changing writing technologies. The roll, the codex, and the printed book shape what writing is, how it is socially used, and the way persons think about language and the world. Contemporary Western culture is in the midst of a transition from the era of the printed book to the era of electronic writing. Computerized writing has inundated contemporary culture with text products; the Bible, and perhaps every other special text, is to some degree swallowed up. Word processing and particularly new electronic textual forms such as hypertext and hypermedia are beginning to reshape both our practices with and associations for the written word, including sacred texts such as the Bible. Electronic writing invites modification; it emphasizes the contextual and dynamic aspects of written language and undermines the image of the printed word as a fixed deposit of truth. The computer's speed and storage capacity make possible electronic texts forms which are unlike the linear book. As such forms are assimilated, they will relativize our images of and approach to all texts, including the Bible. In an electronic era, the Bible may become not a closed and complete "book," but an opening to meaning always on the way to further meaning. |
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| ISSN: | 1945-7596 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Biblical theology bulletin
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/014610799002000302 |