Fortress Press

“Timothy Stanley's stimulating book challenges the reader to reflect on the technical significance of writing, especially the writing of faith, from antiquity to the present. Early Christian preferences for writing sacred texts in codex books is strikingly juxtaposed with modern philosophical reflections on the nature of text, printed word, and publication from Derrida back to Kierkegaard via Heidegger. Among many riches, three notable matters emerge: first, that the codex enabled the ongoing unified representation of diversity, just as does the printed book; second, that writing, especially on treated animal skin, was a deep sign of verbal incarnation beyond the philosophical privileging of orality; and third, that concrete text both creates presence and denotes absence, is both immanent and apophatic. Reading this essay will encourage you to reconsider your theological understanding of all written media, not least the gains and losses of the contemporary action of ‘scrolling down.’”