Steve Deyo. "From the Good Book to the Good Disk." BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW. Vol. 21 No. 6 (November/December 1995): 71-77.
Deyo reports on the electronic resources available for the study of the Bible. He lists the CD-ROM versions of the Bible text. He gives a guide on how to make the best choice of product. He summarizes Bible software: from acCordance 1.1 for Macintosh, through seven or so other products, ending with WORDsearch. He reports on "the Bible online." This covers Bible-oriented newsgroups, mailing lists, gopher sites, file transers, web sites, Jewish web sites, Christian hot lists. He reports on signing up with America Online and Compuserve. He notes that Christianity Today, the magazine, anchors AOL's Religion and Ethics area. Enter keyword CT for this forum.
THE PROGRAMME enters this item in the bibliography because it is symptomatic of the spread of the electronic information technologies to the most traditional activities in the culture. The operative principle, illustrative of the postmodern situation, is this: when the electronic medium embraces a traditional subject, it alters the traditional subject, even though text within that subject may remain untouched. The style, pace, ease of access change the quality of the thing accessed. It is safe to assume that, as people study the bible through "the good disk," they will see "the good book" in a different way. This probably should give little comfort to traditionalists who think that the new access will simply improve upon the old system of study. It will change the system and change the understanding people have of the subject.
19 November 1995
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