In my continued reading of Alan Jacobs’ A Theology of Reading, I’ve come to his chapter “Kenosis.†He addresses the question of whether someone can love a text in the same self-giving way that one can — even ought to — love another person.
Kenosis is the Greek word used in Philippians 2:7 to describe the “self-emptying†movement of Christ in his Incarnation:
[Jesus], being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross! (Phil. 2:6–8, NIV)
The Love for Books
Jacobs quotes several Jewish sources which speak of intense love for the Torah, including this description of a medieval ceremony on the Feast of Shavuot:
The teacher sat the boy on his lap and showed him a slate on which were written the Hebrew alphabet, a passage from the Scriptures and the words “May the Torah be your occupation.†Then the slate was covered with honey and the child licked it, thereby bodily assimilating the holy words. (Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading, 71, as quoted by Jacobs)