Print vs Digital in Bible Reading/Study

I read an excellent article today that I thought this community would appreciate. If you have a few minutes, read this over and I would be interested to hear what you think - https://textandcanon.org/how-digital-apps-are-changing-how-we-read-the-bible/

Here is the paragraph that really stood out to me, in particular, the sentence I underlined below.

"This recalls the Marshall McLuhan’s famous saying, “the medium is the message.” By this McLuhan meant several things, one of which was that a medium can influence how we perceive a message, much like tone of voice and body language when speaking in person. In this case, the medium of print itself sends a message of confidence, while screens seems to send a message of anxiety. It’s likely that we associate print with trust, but phones with all the complex emotions we experience on social media. It’s interesting to note that the text of scripture hasn’t changed at all, but when the medium changes, people perceive it differently."

Do you think that it's true that our printed Bibles sends more of a message of "confidence" while our screens send a message of anxiety? If so, how does or should that impact the way we use Logos?

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David Thomas

“the medium is the message.”

About 10 days ago I did a graveside funeral for a family that had very loose connections with any church. As a convenience having all my notes and readings on my tablet made perfect sense to me, but to communicate something stable (confident?) to those grieving who were searching for something to grasp onto, I hid my tablet within the crease of my paper Bible. [I've done the same with weddings that were of a more formal style]

What do we do with the Shema - HEAR (not read) O Israel...?

Post-industrial revolution in the West we presume literacy that IS NOT PRESENT in much of the world.

I'm not sure that confidence/anxiety are my underlying affect. In my mind it is more static/convenience. I prefer a both/and rather than either/or.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286274#Comment_1286274

I prefer a both/and rather than either/or.

I appreciate your response David and like your solution of using your tablet within your paper Bible. I must confess that I seldom use my paper Bible now but see the value of using both.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286280#Comment_1286280

I would never read the Bible in electronic format in a public situation. It is difficult to show reverence for an i-pad ...

1Cor10 31

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286285#Comment_1286285

I read the Bible all the time on my iPhone including during Sunday service. I take Notes as I'm reading during parts of the service that I don't care for (Announcements etc.). I've had 2 very good friends that thought I was reading my Phone because they are used to reading the Bible in print version. If they weren't really dear friends, I might have snapped at their reaction to me using the iPhone during service. Their reaction is based on an underlying false assumption.

Another episode...Recently, I was also at a Silent retreat and I was on my laptop reading the Bible. 2 people - happy to call them idiots - came and asked me if I was working! Why assume that I, who voluntarily signed up for a Silent retreat, would go to the retreat and work! The way I get an awe of God is by reading the Bible and putting the puzzle pieces of God's beautiful design together one puzzle piece at a time, while others may connect with God by walking through the woods. We are all created differently by God and we all connect with God differently. Why are people trying to fit everyone in one mold?

I'm wondering if people had similar reaction when Bibles were first made available in print. Maybe, some people thought reading scrolls was more reverential compared to reading the print version!

Technology moves along whether we embrace it or now.

Doc B

I saw that article as well, and it was thought-provoking.

I'm a big fan of McLuhan's book...I think he was spot on then and still is today. We ignore his warnings at our own peril.

I use an iPad a great deal at church, including when teaching. But it bothers me that I may be sending messages I don't intend and don't want. I'm not sure how valid or reliable Dyer's survey was (he doesn't report any of this); his n was pretty solid and I suspect, while descriptive, his results carry quite a bit of good valuable info. I don't think they are easily dismissed.

It will be interesting to see, Bruce, how many eisegete your post and make it say something you didn't say (such as a criticism of digital apps) or miss your question entirely (as I see one respondent has already done). I think this question about the media is a legitimate question and I'd like some answers in depth on it. I doubt we'll get those answers on this forum, but like you, I'm curious what some of the folks here think.

Mike Binks

I would be interested to hear what you think

Do you think that it's true that our printed Bibles sends more of a message of "confidence" while our screens send a message of anxiety? If so, how does or should that impact the way we use Logos?

I think it depends more on the receiver of the message than the medium used.

Some, in our congregation, only like the Bible Reading to be read from the Lecture Bible. They dislike it if somebody reads from their own copy.

Some look on the 'printed' word as Old Fashioned' and its use a symbol of incompetence with modern media.

I think the electronic versions will grow in use and acceptance and that folk will assiduously obtain something new to complain about.

For me the message is the message.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286362#Comment_1286362

I think the electronic versions will grow in use and acceptance and that folk will assiduously obtain something new to complain about.

[:)]

Human kind is so predictable.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286362#Comment_1286362

For me the message is the message.

I had great fun envisioning the Torah scrolls replaced by an iPad in a synagogue. Outside a worship environment, I agree with you but inside worship I think of the scrolls. To carry it to the extreme Dedicating a New Torah Scroll - Chabad.org

Br Damien-Joseph OSB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286443#Comment_1286443

A lot of the answers to the question the OP posed will demonstrate particular convictions about what the Bible or Scripture is to a particular person or group. I can show this by asking an obvious question. Does the Word of God transcend the medium it is written in? That is to say, is it an idea, a content, which means more than what its individual words, taken together, mean in our minds? If so, then we cannot discount that the language it's written in is, itself, a medium. English, Spanish, Tagalog, even Hebrew, are a medium for the Voice that speaks outside of the narrow confines of human language. We can see easily in some Islamic sects a reverence for the very words in the original language their scriptures were spoken/written in, and that reverence produces such a conviction that the words are no longer sacred when translated, or when put into a different medium, say. I think some Orthodox Jews also believe their Scriptures are only Scriptures when they are in Hebrew. They understand that every act of translation is first, and necessarily, an act of interpretation.

So, that leads me to the point: what interpretation of Scripture are we making--what are we saying about Scripture's content and word-transcendent meaning--when we translate its medium from scroll to codex, or from paper book to digital iPad? How one believes God speaks to His people is at work here. Does He speak to His people primarily in the privacy of their homes? Primarily from the pulpit of a worshipping community? Primarily from the projector screen of a university classroom? Crucially for Christians we might ask: what does the content of the Scriptures say about how God has spoken to humans in their language(s)? (I emphasize the word "primarily" because God clearly can speak to us through donkeys, but we rightly do not turn to donkeys to hear the Voice of God.)

The differences of convictions among us are based on how we answer this, I believe. TL;DR: mediums of Scripture are our interpretations of Scripture.

Rosie Perera

I read an excellent article today that I thought this community would appreciate. If you have a few minutes, read this over and I would be interested to hear what you think - https://textandcanon.org/how-digital-apps-are-changing-how-we-read-the-bible/

Great article. Thank you for sharing it.

I am OK with people reading from a screen in church, but I prefer seeing a tablet to a phone. A phone seems too casual/informal. One of our regular worship leaders has macular degeneration and requires extremely large print to be able to read, so he leads worship from his tablet. He has also scanned our entire hymnal to PDF and uses that zoomed in to sing from. It's absolutely integrated into the way we worship as a congregation and doesn't seem odd or irreverent.

I'm not sure I would use the word "anxiety" about having the scriptures on a digital medium. I think it's another stage in accessibility of the Bible. The printing press shifted from having the Bible only read in an authoritative voice from up front in church, from a rare manuscript copy, few of which existed. Then people could own a Bible in their own home, but it still had a place of honor in a leather bound edition, that perhaps only Father read from when the family was gathered for devotions. Eventually multiple different translations proliferated, including casual-looking paperback editions like The Way (edition of The Living Bible aimed at the hippy generation). It made the Bible something people could relate to more personally.

The multiple translations might have created some anxiety, as some people questioned what was the authoritative word of God if there were so many different versions of it. I think that was more of a change than the digitization of the Bible (in all its multiple versions), which meant people could carry it with them everywhere, and read it in snippets of time at work, on airplanes, etc. They could enlarge the font to be able to read it when their eyes started going bad. I think it's been a net benefit overall.

BTW, I met John Dyer at a conference on faith & technology that we both spoke at. He is a great guy and one of the best current thinkers on the topic of how technology affects faith. He's also the creator of bestcommentaries.com.

Dyer's From the Garden to the City is a great book. I haven't read People of the Screen yet, but it's on my list to read. Unfortunately, the former is only available in audio format from Logos I've got requests in for both of these on the feedback site.

PLEASE VOTE HERE:

From the Garden to the City: The Place of Technology in the Story of God

People of the Screen: How Evangelicals Created the Digital Bible and How It Shapes Their Reading of Scripture

He also co-wrote (with Heidi Campbell, whom I also met at that same conference), which you can vote for here:

Ecclesiology for a Digital Church: Theological Reflections on a New Normal

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286481#Comment_1286481

Also, in that same edition of Text and Canon, very cool: an article about a newly available digitized edition of the only extant 1602 Bishops' Bible with handwritten marginal notes left by the KJV translators.

https://textandcanon.org/a-newly-digitized-bible-reveals-the-origins-of-the-king-james-version/

Here's the digitized version, freely available through the Bodleian Library at Oxford:

https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/8f45d791-61c5-42f2-9ce3-a27ee8ac7e90/surfaces/ada76226-9155-408e-947f-605fd9f8ee07/

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286481#Comment_1286481

BTW, I met John Dyer at a conference on faith & technology that we both spoke at. He is a great guy and one of the best current thinkers on the topic of how technology affects faith. He's also the creator of bestcommentaries.com.

I didn't know this Rosie. Thanks for pointing this out.

PLEASE VOTE HERE:

From the Garden to the City: The Place of Technology in the Story of God

People of the Screen: How Evangelicals Created the Digital Bible and How It Shapes Their Reading of Scripture

He also co-wrote (with Heidi Campbell, whom I also met at that same conference), which you can vote for here:

Ecclesiology for a Digital Church: Theological Reflections on a New Normal

Done! I would like to read these.

Kenneth Neighoff

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286511#Comment_1286511

Here is a good book on this subject.

Jeffrey S. Siker

Liquid Scripture: The Bible in a Digital World

I have this in my kindle library. As far as I know it is not available in Logos.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286523#Comment_1286523

Here is a good book on this subject.

Jeffrey S. Siker

Liquid Scripture: The Bible in a Digital World

I have this in my kindle library. As far as I know it is not available in Logos.

Thanks for that recommendation. I've just put in a request for it in Logos.

VOTE HERE:

Liquid Scripture: The Bible in a Digital World

Bruce Roth

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286481#Comment_1286481

Dyer's From the Garden to the City is a great book. I haven't read People of the Screen yet, but it's on my list to read. Unfortunately, the former is only available in audio format from Logos I've got requests in for both of these on the feedback site.

I had started to create a post related to the book, "People of the Screen", that I had just finished listening to the audio book. I was going to say it dealt with the issue of folks using screens vs paper and it has a history of the industry including Faithlife. I found the audio book from my local library on Hoopla.

I have had to move most of my reading to screens as my eyesight is not doing well.

I actually had long ago a PalmPilot with a Bible app on it and would be using that at church and folks didn't know what to make of that back in the day.

Bruce Dunning

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1286523#Comment_1286523

Here is a good book on this subject.

Jeffrey S. Siker

Liquid Scripture: The Bible in a Digital World

Thanks. Sounds great. I've voted for it. Anyone else care to do it too?

M Jones

Interestingly enough, I had a certified Logos trainer come and teach our church team. We wanted to make sure they knew how to use the software. Instead of physical vs. digital, he recommended a both/and approach, just like the article indicates.

He recommended that we use a physical Bible and journal for the initial study of a passage and our initial O.I.A. for it, then move to digital for the original language, translation comparison, word studies, background context, and commentaries.

As far as presentation, I've varied print or digital based on my audience and their perceptions. It's less about what's most useful for me and what's most helpful for them. Some congregations have been more traditional, and so I print my notes and hold my physical Bible. When I'm in front of our less-traditional church, I have my notes on my iPad and only pick up my Bible to read longer passages within the teaching... all Scripture is shown on our screens so that people who would rather not pick up a Bible or would feel rushed to find the passages can follow along too. We encourage everyone to bring a physical Bible to church but emphasize that the best Bible for them is the one they'll use. So, to each their own. We also have physical Bibles under every other seat in our worship center. They can take those home for free if they don't own a Bible.

We have also designed, printed, and given away 'Scripture Journals' for our last handful of sermon series. We tend to work through books of the Bible methodically, verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter. So we give them a nice booklet with the text divided the way we are going to be teaching it for the series. Then, there are blank notes pages opposite of the text. We also encourage them to do an 'O.I.A.' study of each passage before they come to church on Sunday. This has been received well, and people often bring those journals to our weekend services. We value teaching them how to read and understand the Bible and not wait for a pastor to do that for them. The digital equivalent is just a downloadable pdf, so we could probably do something better there at some point.

Wow, that's a long answer to simply say. "I agree with the article; it's a both/and approach."