But what if we understood “book” in senses other than Miltonian and do not insist that it refer to a finished product? Mroczek’s portrayal of the term “book” is not wrong, but it is incomplete. “Book” often means “collection” in the modern context and could mean “collection” in antiquity as well, such as the “book of Psalms” (βίβλος ψαλμῶν) in Luke 20:42 and Acts 1:20. Yet the term did not always or necessarily take on a meaning of “collection.”

The relevant terms for “book”— ספ ר , βίβλος, βιβλίον, liber, volumen— carried a more rudimentary meaning of “bookroll” or “scroll.” “Book (liber, βιβλίον), as far as the ancients were concerned, meant a roll (Lat. volumen).” At base, these terms referred simply to the cultural artifact of papyrus or parchment that contained the written script, an instantiation of the tradition that a given person was currently holding or portrayed as holding. An example where this meaning is assumed is when Luke imagines Jesus taking up “a scroll of the prophet Isaiah” (βιβλίον τοῦ προφήτου Ἠσαΐου) and even says “he found the place where it was written” (εὗρεν τόπον οὗ ἦν γεγραμμένον) (Luke 4:16). Another example is when Lucian mocks the ignorant book collector: “To be sure you look at your books (βιβλία) with your eyes open and quite as much as you like, and you read some of them aloud with great fluency, keeping your eyes in advance of your lips; but I do not consider that enough.” The emphasis in such passages is not on whether the tradition is bound or unbound, a collection or not, but upon the material artifact that the author wishes the reader to imagine the person holding.