These questions are particularly relevant in light of the startling reality that most people in this
post-modern twenty-first century world are under the age of 25 and consider the Bible irrelevant
to their lives, if they consider it at all. Unfortunately, this reality does not just concern non-
Christians and the Bible; of course they will not look to the Bible for relevancy. Rather this
reality applies directly to the Christian world: for most post-modern Christian young people, this
ancient document may look good on ones bookshelf but it rarely gets opened and read. The very
idea of reading this relic from the past just doesnt compare with the immediacy of CNN, MTV,
and the Internet. Though many of the older silent generation and baby boomer Christians still sit
down and read this book that we call the Bible, the vast majority of the busters, generation Xers
and millennial Christians do not. And, increasingly, they will not.
There are many reasons for Christians not to read Scripture: a lack of discipline; an improper
training in the church which downplayed the need to read the Bible; or just plain sin and
rebellion against reading Gods Word, to name but a few. Yet still another reason--a reason that
is seldom considered--is that we are today in the midst of one of the greatest technological
changes in the worlds history. It is akin to Gutenbergs invention of the type mold back in the
mid-1400s. His invention allowed for the making of uniformly cast letters on metal bodies that
he subsequently incorporated as moveable type on his revolutionary printing press. Gutenbergs
invention allowed for the relatively inexpensive mass-production of exactly the same document.
And the world, at a variety of different levels, was never the same. Likewise, over the past 20
years technology has undergone yet another revolution that mirrors that of Gutenbergs time.
Today the sameness of the final printed document is now being replaced by the sameness of the
electronic digit: data as a succession of the 1s and 0s of binary math. As it was after Gutenberg,
so it is for us today: the world, at a variety of different levels, is being radically changed. It is
therefore crucial for us to recognize the incredible technological shift that is even now occurring
all around us and its implications for our future approaches not only to the Bible and how it is
read but to its very interpretation. Christians today--especially those Christians under the age of
25--do not read the Bible because print media is increasingly irrelevant and, for many, not to be
trusted. They believe what they see on a screen: computer, TV, or movie theater.
In light of this latest technological revolution, what is the Church to do? Here is where history
can help us. The people of God--throughout history--have always read and interpreted the Bible
using the methodologies, thought processes and technologies that were available to them and that
fit their cultural situation. Reading styles and interpretation methodologies throughout the
centuries have changed and adapted based on the situation of the people who were claiming the
Bible as their ultimate source for their faith and practice. Therefore I believe that as we examine
how they read and interpreted the Word of God in their own contexts we will be guided in how to
read and interpret Gods Word in the midst of the latest technological changes that we face.
Because of space and time considerations what follows will necessarily be brief and incomplete.
The development of the different reading styles and hermeneutical methodologies of the past four
thousand years is an immense subject area.