The (Un)Stable Digital Bible: A Destabilising Peritext and Stabilising Epitext

Abstract

Over the past 30 years the Bible has gone digital. This transition from paper technology to digital technology has attracted the interest of scholars because such a change has consequences for how the Bible is used and could lead to differences in how it is understood. Many are claiming that a digital Bible will result in a less stable Bible (Parker, 2003; Pui-lan, 2008; Beal, 2011, pp. 189–190; Wagner, 2012, pp. 20–23; Clivaz, 2014; Holmes, 2016), due to the peritext (the physical aspect of the text) of this new reading technology. However, I argue that this claim does not sufficiently take into account the Bible’s epitext (the nonphysical aspect of the text), through which evangelical Christians engage the scriptures. Ultimately, I argue that the epitext will limit the destabilising effect of the digital peritext.