The "Gutenberg Galaxy" and the Historical Study of the New Testament

Abstract

The general thesis of this essay states that Gutenberg’s print revolution has been a constitutive factor in the formation of the modern scholarship of the Bible. Specifically, the essay explores the historical-critical study of the New Testament from the angle of the typographic medium. Gutenberg’s print Bible is explained as setting the standards for the technologically-organised typographic space . The bulk of the essay describes both the constructive and the deconstructive impact that the fully rationalised format of the Bible has had on theological, exegetical, and hermeneutical sensibilities. Among the issues illuminated by the typographic examination are: entirely identical biblical texts; a text-centred concept of Christian origins; the spread of a post-Gutenberg intellectualism; the rise of the critical, textual edition; the Protestant principle of sola scriptura ; the diminution of oral, memorial sensibilities; the premise of originality versus derivativeness, and many others. In all, it is argued that the print medium deeply affected the modern academic scholarship of the New Testament, for better and for worse.