This is a Kuka industrial robot that has been programmed to "write" Martin Luther's translation of the Bible on huge scrolls of paper as part of an art exhibit (click image for more photos). When I first saw this image on Book Patrol I was horrified. I find it profoundly disturbing to see a machine taking the place of a biblical scribe. This robot can have no relationship to the text being reproduced, and no relationship with the people who will be reading it (not that anyone will be reading those unwieldy scrolls). To have such a deeply human book "written" by a completely unfeeling thing just seems wrong to me. It should be no surprise that the resulting text looks perfect, and dead.
Contrast this with the Saint John's Bible, which is being written entirely by hand, or more precisely, by a group of hands. Every book is different, depending on the scribe, and every letter is unique, with different flourishes depending on its location in the word and the line. The text is alive, written by people for people, overseen and supported spiritually and materially by a strong community of faith.
Such a human endeavour is naturally open to mistakes. If they are minor, or caught right away, the surface layers of parchment can be scraped away and the correct text inserted. Large omissions that are not noticed until the page is proofread require more creative solutions. I've seen a few of these in the 5 volumes of the Saint John's Bible that have been completed so far, but here is a particularly charming one from the Wisdom Books.
No robot, if it could make a mistake, would be capable of such humour and imagination in fixing it. I'll take creative human imperfection over lifeless robot perfection any day.
