introduction

i am sitting in a small room with the book. it is large, 14x10x4 inches,closed. it is bound in red heifer hide, and the edges of the pages glow with gold leaf. it weights about 20 pounds. both hands are needed to pick it up and open it, and then it covers most of my little desk, leaving only room for a candlestick, which i move from side to side because the book is wider than the taper's pool of light.

northrup frey claims that there are two kinds of writing, text and commentary. this is the text on which what we call western civilization has been a commentary. sometimes the commentary has been joyous, sometimes sad. some parts of that commentary have tried to stay close to the text, other parts have repudiated it. but even the repudiation has been of the text my candle lights in yellow pools for me to read.

the text is, of course, the holy bible, the authorized version, printed at the oxford university press by geoffrey cumberledge in letters that stand out on the paper, and appointed to be read in churches.

the older way of reading it in churches was to finish a reading with "thus endeth the lesson," to which the people would respond, "thanks be to god." more recently the lessons are often ended, "the word of the lord." this is not, however, the real teaching of the church. for muslims the koran is really the word of god. for christians the word is the second person of the trinity, "through whom all things were made," "who by the power of the holy spirit became incarnate from the virgin mary." but the books of the bible, it is taught, "containeth all things necessary to salvation."

that it is a book, one huge volume, also available in volumes of many other sizes, is itself a recent phenomenon, a product of the printing press that heralded the beginning of the modern age. we of my generation--i was born in 1946--are so accustomed to books and to the one we call "the good book" that we sometimes act as if the holy one can only be revealed by a book. for many of my friends born after 1980, that revelation is called up by a left-click on an icon on their laptop. at least the post-modern age is regaining the iconic nature of this revelation in words.

there was a time before there was a book, not only printed books but even hand-written books. then the words were a song. it is to encourage the recovery of the song that this essay is undertaken.