During the present shift from print to computer-mediated communication (CMC) literacy, much scholarship has taken a short view, looking at the history of the Internet, for example, rather than at other eras of major change in communication technology, such as the development of the alphabet or the shifts from the scroll to the codex to the printed book. This era of CMC resembles other ages-particularly manuscript eras-when changes in communication media restructured human thought, how communicators and teachers conceived of and constructed texts, and the processes by which they made sense of texts and imparted them with authority. By studying the areas of similarity between the rabbinic and medieval manuscript eras and our own time, technical communicators may come to an understanding of how changes in technology sparked shifts in the social and intellectual dynamics of text construction. And by looking at these earlier traditions and the environments in which texts were studied, we may develop a deeper understanding of some of the intellectual, ethical, and educational implications of texts in this CMC era.