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't l8HYPERTEXT 3.0blurs the distinction between what is inside and what is outside a text. It alsomakes all the terts connected to a block of text collaborate with that text.The Status ofthe Text, Status inthe TextAlvin Kernan claims that "Benjamin's general theory of thedemystification of art through numerous reproductions explainsprecisely what happened when in the eighteenth centurythe printing press, with its logic of multiplicity, strippedthe classical texts of the old literary order of their aura" (152), and it seemslikely that hipertext will extend this process of demystification even further.Kernan convincingly argues that by Pope's time a "flood of books, in itsaccumulation both of different texts and identical copies of the same texts,threatened to obscure the few idealized classics, both ancient and modern, ofpolite letters, and to weaken their aura by making printed copies of them"(153). Any information medium that encourages rapid dissemination of tertsand easy access to them will increasingly demystify individual texts. Buthypertext has a second potentially demystifying effect by making the bordersof the text (now conceived as the individual lexia) permeable, it removes someof its independence and uniqueness.Kernan further adds that "since printed books were for the most part inthe vernacular, they further desacralized letters by expanding its canon froma group of venerable texts written in ancient languages known only to an eliteto include a body of contemporary writing in the natural language understoodby all who read" (153-54). Will electronic Web versions of the Bibleaccompanied by commentaries, concordances, and dictionaries, like Naue'sTopical Bible (hnp:l lbible.christiansunite.com/Naves-TopicalBible/), whichseem to be essentially democratizing, similarly desacralize the scriptureslThey have the potential to do so in two ways. First, by making some of thescholar's procedures easily available to almost any reader, this electronicBible might demystify a text that possesses a talismanic power for many in itsintended audience.Second, and more fundamental, the very fact that this hypertext Bibleenforces the presence of multiple versions potentially undercuts belief in thepossibility of a unique, unitary text. Certainly, the precedent of Victorian lossof belief in the doctrine of verbal inspiration of the scriptures suggests thathypertert could have a potentially parallel effect (Landow, Victorian Types,54-56). In Victorian England the widescale abandonment of belief that everyword of the Bible was divinely inspired, even in its English translation, followedfrom a variety of causes, including influence of German higher criticism,independent British applications of rational approaches by those like