Digital technologies have made the Bible accessible to vast and diverse audiences through user-friendly apps and websites offering multiple language versions alongside powerful study tools. This transition from the printed book to a hypertextual, multimodal environment has not only widened access to Scripture but also the ways in which it is read and interpreted. On the one hand, digital platforms encourage a fragmentary and highly selective mode of engagement, often centred on decontextualized, inspirational excerpts that circulate as self-contained units of meaning. On the other hand, the same platforms may provide sophisticated tools —such as search engines, and concordancers —that enable forms of close, intensive, and comparative reading traditionally associated with scholarly exegesis. While the former mode reinforces superficial or uneven forms of scriptural knowledge, the latter may enable sustained, comparative and insightful reading of the Bible depending on the users' varying degrees of digital literacy and interpretive skill.
This paper examines the tension between these two reading modes as a crucial site where religious (in)equality is both challenged and reproduced. As a case study, I will investigate the interplay between the expressions "Son of God" and "Son of Man" across the biblical corpus. While Jesus predominantly self-identifies as "Son of Man," humans are also often referred to as "sons of Man" as well as "sons of God". Through online concordancing, the study maps the frequency and distribution of these commonly used biblical expressions with a view to exploring their possible interpretations within Christian faith and theology.
The paper argues that online Bibles simultaneously encourage fragmented reading and enable exegetical enquiry. Far from being mutually exclusive, these modes coexist in a dynamic tension that redefines contemporary engagement with Scripture and underlines the ambivalent impact of digital biblical media.