Long ago the orthodox rabbis had to pass a test whereby the examiner would stab the Torah book with a long pin and the applicant would have to recite in order every word the pin passed through front to back.
A level of memorization that must have made sense once upon a time. But they at least lived by what they recited.
So many people today can recite almost like that [and not necessarily from any Judeo-Christian text] without bothering to actually absorb the meat of the words they have stabbed. A flesh wound, not a dagger through the heart, which they can never seem to find.
