Unlike most readers in Antiquity who read their books aloud, we have developed the convention of reading silently. This lets us read more widely but often less well, especially when what we are reading-such as the plays of Shakespeare and Holy Scripture-is a body of oral material that has been, almost but not quite accidentally, captured in a book like a fly in amber.

Whose Bible Is It?: A History of the Scriptures through the Ages (ed. Penguin UK, 2006) - ISBN: 9780141926759