Do YOu foresee a time when NO printed Bibles will be made?

I can foresee that day, but it will not be as soon as some think.

I am actually on board with the concept of electronic publishing. Especially in the realm of scholarship and students, where the ability to carry their entire load of textbooks on a reader tablet (the whole Library of Congress for that matter!) the change seems to be a good one and it is upon us whether or not we like it.

As an exercise in my company, some of our staff examined the current state of affairs at the cutting edge of education (we provide facilities management for educational facilities so must stay abreast of new technology and even help to introduce it to the schools we manage). What they found is that the concept of virtual classroom, including virtual teacher, tablet textbooks, "smart" white-boards, where all the class lecture and notes are sent to each student, etc., are already in place in some of the world's classrooms. The day of libraries full of dusty old books that must be read, hand copied, cited correctly, etc., is just about over.

Even in my doctoral dissertation formatting business, I am seeing that electronic citation that captures very accurately the proper citations used in any given text are more normal than not. We await only the addition of electronic volumes to go full speed ahead in this venture.

And, as a final thought, the kids of our kids will wonder why anyone ever picked up something as archaic as a book when one can read (with full interactivity) on a screen. They will still see books and people reading them, but that will mostly be in people over the age of 50 "who just don't know any better."

Oh, and do you have your Bible app for your smartphone yet? :laugh:

 

That question sounds a bit like asking a Christian who lived long before the invention of the printing press, "Do you foresee a time when no hand-written bibles will be made?" I realise that it's not quite the same thing as you are asking, because now, both printed and electronic bibles are available, whereas back then, only handwritten bibles were to be had. I personally cannot see a time when no bibles at all will be available in printed form, because while a printed bible can be read with the eyes and no external equipment, the same is not true of electronic bibles. Even in the affluent West, there are people who don't have a mobile phone, or a computer, or a tablet.

 

Quick answer is no. The book will always be available. Some people to-day still must have a bible sitting on a counter top for display. It is a religious thing. Hard to do that with electronics. Frankly, I don't find electronics that handy when reading the scripture. It is handy for writing sermons and printing them out, but not for actual study of a passage.

In my opinion, the more electronics take over the more our language will deteriorate. It is going downhill fast enough now.

Cheers,

Jim

 

I quite agree with you, Jim!