No, I am not a Luddite — someone “who opposes or resists technological change.” I have no problem with emerging technologies. I use them all the time. However, there is a difference between leveraging a technology and being unaware of the inherent liabilities that come with the convenience it provides.
Neil Postman touched on the point I’m trying to make in 1985:
“Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?” ~ Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
Nowhere is this adage more applicable than in how we apply the “digitization of everything” to the Bible.
Let’s Get Digital
When I refer to the dangers of a digital Bible, I mean “digital” in two different ways. First, it is about the practice of interpreting the Bible as a collection of discrete packets of information instead of a continuously flowing narrative.
Second, it is about the way the Bible, like any other written text, has been digitized so that we can read it on our electronic devices.
There are dangerous aspects to both. And every Christian needs to be aware of them.
Discrete Thoughts -vs- Flowing Narrative
It’s hard for us to imagine not having chapters and verses in the Bible. We’ve never seen a Bible without them. I think some people assume they were part of what the original authors wrote down. But the truth is, they haven’t always been there.
Though earlier versions of the Old Testament contained chapter divisions, the first translation of the New Testament to include verses within those chapters was the Geneva translation of 1557. Chapter and verse divisions first appeared in the whole Bible three years later.
The Bible is composed of historical accounts, poetry, technical records, and personal letters, written just like any other form of written communication. They have a narrative flow — a written attempt to paint a word picture that you can only see when you take the whole scene into account. But that makes it hard to find specific thoughts. So, along came the division of the narrative into chapters and verses.
Chapters and verses are quite obviously convenient. Imagine trying to refer someone to a specific passage in the Bible without them! They make it easy to locate our favorite passages when we do Bible study. And it definitely makes it easier to memorize specific thoughts that we believe are important.
Some of those chapter-and-verse combinations have even become icons of the faith — a kind of mini-sermon on a sign. Even people who have never studied the Bible at all have a pretty good idea what this guy is saying just by wearing his T-shirt:
But there are dangers that come with isolating sections of any written document and using them to make a point, even if it’s a good one.
“Never Read a Bible Verse”
Apologist Greg Koukl has said that the most important lesson he could ever teach any Christian is that they should “never read a Bible verse.” That sounds like a weird thing for someone who cherishes Scripture to say. But Koukl says that precisely because he cherishes Scripture.
It’s essential to recognize not only that the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament didn’t contain chapters and verses, but also that they lacked punctuation altogether. The format in which they were written was a continuous flow of thought. We’ve added divisions in the text to appeal to our modern sensibilities. And there’s nothing wrong with that — unless you forget that you did it.
Our tendency to extract one-liners from the text means that we often take them entirely out of context. The meaning of a phrase or sentence can change dramatically if you isolate it from the complete narrative in which it was written.
Genre Games
The minimal level of analysis that should go into interpreting a passage of Scripture is understanding the genre in which it is written. As an example, take the popular idea to:
“Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” ~ Proverbs 22:6
It’s a proverb — a “wise saying.” It’s not a promise. And there are plenty of Christian parents with rebellious children who will attest to that fact. If you were to treat this line of Scripture as a divine promise, you would be deeply disappointed if it didn’t pan out.
Historical narratives, poetry, theological treatises, and circular letters are all completely different forms of writing. We need to treat them that way.
Target Audience
Audience matters. Old Testament exiles in Babylon are not New Testament Christians in Atlanta, for instance. That’s why the often-repeated, feel-good verse many contemporary Christians love and are quick to claim for themselves is so often misapplied:
“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11
This encouragement was written to exiled Jews in Babylon, comforting them with the promise that they would return to their land nearly 60 years later. Unfortunately, many Christians snatch this verse completely out of context and use it to take hold of the prosperous future they think God is promising them when they’re considering a new job. It makes them feel good. But it’s funny that no one ever points to a passage in the same letter that shows up seven verses later:
“I will pursue them with the sword, famine, and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach …” ~ Jeremiah 29:18
No one is claiming that verse for themselves. I wonder why?
The real reason is that they don’t like Jeremiah 29:18 because it doesn’t serve their purposes. But what they fail to realize is that the reason verse 29:18 doesn’t apply to them is the same reason Jeremiah 29:11 doesn’t apply to them.
It wasn’t written to them.
The problem isn’t with the content of the passages in question. The problem is with the method they’re using. Snatching a verse out of context almost always leads to bad theology.
Follow the Flow
This is the problem with digitizing the Bible in this way. Seeing a discrete chapter-and-verse label on a passage leads us to think it’s a discrete thought. But it’s not. It’s part of a larger narrative.
The only place where people will quote a single sentence or phrase from a book as authoritative is when it’s in the Bible. But nobody thinks like that. You wouldn’t do it with any other book you’ve ever read. If you’re confused about how to understand a particular verse, the simple act of reading the entire paragraph in which it is embedded will often clarify its meaning. Always read at least a paragraph. Sometimes, it takes a chapter. But in every case, you have to take into account the context of the book in which the passage appears.
Along the same lines, most of our Bibles today include section headings meant to summarize what will follow. Ignore them. The original authors didn’t put them there. And they can be misleading. In fact, they sometimes interrupt a line of reasoning that is supposed to follow from a previous passage. A subtitle can thereby separate thoughts that were not meant to be separated.
Digital Scripture
Thomas Jefferson famously cut out all the references to miracles or the resurrection in his personal Bible. He didn’t accept that things like that could happen, so he simply deleted them from the book. As a result, Jefferson’s version of the New Testament was only 84 pages long.
Doing that took a lot of time and effort on his part. But imagine if he had an electronic version of the Bible. Cutting and pasting would be a piece of cake! Don’t like some “judgmental” idea you read about in Romans 1? No problem.
Right-click -> Select -> Delete. Voila! It’s gone forever.
This illuminates the second kind of danger that comes with a digital Bible:
If it’s electronic, it’s not necessarily reliable.
Don’t get me wrong. I have the Bible on all my electronic devices. This is not some archaic declaration that the only kind of Bible you should own is a real one that you can hold in your hands.
Personally, I prefer actual books to digital ones. But that’s not my point. The problem with a digitized Bible is that it can be so easily altered by those who control the platform on which it is delivered.
For those of us who grew up with an actual book, this issue is not as big a deal. We’ve read the real words and would most likely recognize if they were changed or missing. But in a world of only e-books and Bible apps, how do our grandchildren — or, worse, our great, great, great, great-grandchildren — have any guarantee that the Bible they’re reading is the one the original authors actually wrote?
For that matter, what happens if we reach the day when the Bible is only available in electronic form ... and the powers that be don’t approve of it at all?
What You’re Guarding
In 2 Timothy, Paul exhorts us not only to “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it” (2 Timothy 3:14), but to “guard the treasure that has been entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:14).
The treasure is in the form of a collection of inspired manuscripts we call the Bible. Ideas matter. And the ideas God wanted to be preserved are expressed in the words the original authors wrote down. That’s the only standard that should concern us.
Pithiness, convenience, and cultural acceptability have no bearing on the message God meant to convey through Scripture. And that’s why, no matter how many ways we find to do it, digitizing the Bible is a bad idea.
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