A few days ago, a post went up over at the BigBible Project talking about six ways a phone can change your view of the Bible. An insightful and reflective post, the six points were:
- Instant access to a library of commentaries and translations
- Make the text your own (w/highlights, notes and bookmarks)
- Bible reading becomes public and social
- Bible reading can be monitored and held accountable
- Bible reading becomes private and invisible
- Software is interpretation
Those reasons caused me to reflect a good bit towards how I’ve changed and evolved because of Bibles on my tablets and mobile devices. Some of the points from BigBible Project’s article fit – but then I realized how I’ve gone in a bit more on aa few of them.
For example, the idea of instant access to commentaries and translations is less important than what it used to be. I’m more interested in the sociological, geological, and other historical documents that affirm or challenge the text. Instead of highlights and bookmaks, I draw. I don’t care to be so public with me reading; but I do like the ease some services offer in sharing the text (such as Bib.ly and Ref.ly). Software is definitely interpretation – and that’s where I feel that biblical literacy shouldn’t just be reading the text, but building it as well. Its interesting, and through that list I can see how far I’ve come since getting that digital Bible on a PDA more than a decade ago.
So what about you? How has tablets and mobiles, or just the access to various Biblical services or classes, changed how you use or view the Bible? Do you see anything to be alarmed about it what has changed for you? Or, do you like the way in which you are evolving?