Abstract In this essay, I draw inspiration from scholars in book history, literary studies, and material religion, who emphasize the importance of the materiality of text, applying their insights to the study of religious texts. Katherine Hayles’s idea of the book as a “material metaphor” that structures the relation of words to the world serves as one such inspiration. In my own research, it was the advent of digital Bibles, which brought renewed attention to the material medium of texts, whether digital or print. My argument about materiality extends beyond the text to include users of texts and related practices. I integrate these three elements—texts, users, and textual practices—into the conceptual framework of “practicing texts.” This framework is delineated using historical and contemporary material, with special attention to bodily metaphors as reminders of the materiality of texts and their embodied users to demonstrate its broad applicability in understanding the persuasiveness of religious texts.
Katja Rakow (Fri,) studied this question.