Kindle, Christianity and the Future of the Book

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Don’t miss this very insightful post by Alan Jacobs (professor of English at Wheaton College) entitled Christianity and the Future of the Book. The similarity of the codex and ereaders, like the Kindle, might surprise you.

…for those who love the book and especially the Book, the Bible, the rise of electronic reading devices should be the least of our concerns. Electronic reading devices like the Kindle, and even tablets like the iPad, preserve many of the essential features of the codex; and in this, they are quite distinct from other “screens” on which we might read. To decry the move from the book to the screen is simply to employ categories too crude for the phenomena that are being described.

A codex, by the way, is “a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings (sheets of paper or vellum in multiples of two which are folded and stitched through) typically bound together and given a cover” and looks like this (yep a book):

Moreover, Jacob knows well the connection between technology and Bible translation:

…Christians tend to be a proselytizing people, and the message that they bring will always be entangled with technologies of reading.

Read more…

(HT: First Thoughts)

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