If it takes an imaginative leap to see the book, understood as an artefact or object, as a sign or symbol in Christian life, then this is perhaps down to sheer familiarity. Books are ubiquitous in Western culture. I sit writing this in one of my favourite places: an enormous bookshop in rural Warwickshire, consisting of multiple barns full of volumes on every imaginable topic. Even in the café I am surrounded by stacks of the things, I am resting my laptop on a few of my most treasured discoveries (books are working objects, after all).
Should clergy learn New Testament Greek?
“To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life”. There are many excellent reasons for learning a language other than one’s own mother tongue. Doing so opens up horizons that would otherwise be closed. We are regularly reminded of the beneficial effects of language-learning for children, with all its concomitant social and intellectual advantages. […]