MetaV

Visualizing Cross References (Again)

2012-03-07T12:18:00.003-06:00

When R.A. Torrey compiled his Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, I doubt he could have envisioned the ways in which those hundreds of thousands of cross references would take shape years later. Inspired by Chris Harrison’s rainbow-arc visualization which used a smaller set of cross references, OpenBible.info applied the shape to Torrey’s massive database. Using a combination of these data sources, I added my own summary level analysis of reference frequency in each chapter of the Bible.

Now, OpenBible.info has gone one step further, this time apparently inspired by a cross-reference layout illustrated at the crossway blog back in 2006. This new interactive visualization is a grid layout with books (or groups of books) along the top and left-hand side. Each grid cell represents the cross references between those books.

Grid of Cross References from OpenBible.info

What makes this visualization much more interesting than previous graphics is the way each grid cell is colored. Red is a link from a New Testament book, blue for the Old Testament, green for major divisions of the Bible, gray indicates a cross-reference from a verse in one chapter to another verse in the same chapter, and purple indicates references between chapters in the same book.

As soon as you start getting “interactive” with it, you discover how the color intensity is produced, forming the heat map effect in the grid above. For instance, if you choose to show references from John to Isaiah, you see details of how the passages in those books connect to one another. More lines between them result in more color displayed in the larger grid.

Cross References between John and Isaiah

Such an interactive visualization makes it far simpler to navigate and understand Torrey’s massive dataset. Even if you are not especially interested in exploring these details, everyone should be able to appreciate the message that this and earlier cross-reference visualizations share in common: that the words given to us by God are deeply woven together throughout all the times and cultures in which they were transcribed.

Mapping Social Connections in the Bible

2011-10-14T15:22:00.000-05:00

Early this year I discovered a fascinating visualization that mapped all the connections made between "friends" on Facebook. It quickly spread around the internet with many people pointing out how country boundaries appeared from the links themselves with no borders drawn in the background.

So, as is my tendency, I thought about what it might look like to do something similar based on the connections between people and places in the Bible. Once I set out to define these relationships, I quickly found it hard to get the data I would need. Unlike with Facebook, Moses and Aaron had no way to input their personal information in a database that makes it easy to do this kind of thing. The Semantic Bible project has come a long way in terms of explicitly defining relationships among New Testament figures, but nothing yet for the Old Testament which contains far more people and places. Chris Harrison managed a complex visualization of social networks, but it is based strictly on word proximity to generate connections.

Since MetaV contains genealogical information for everyone in the Bible and geolocation data, I was able to create a composite database of links using both definite relationships and textual proximity. Then, I mapped the data following a very handy tutorial by Nathan Yau at FlowingData. People are linked to places if that person's name appears in the same sentence as a place name. "Sentence" connections are those which have two people mentioned by name in the same sentence. "Self" links are where one person is linked to multiple places due to travels, marriage, etc. "Spouse" and "Parent" relationships are defined according to available genealogy data.

Color variations are a function of how many times the connection appears and the distance between the places. Lines are drawn along great circle routes in keeping with the Facebook map inspiration.

What is immediately clear (though not at all surprising) is the centrality of Israel. The links within Israel and the ones going around the world are so dense that one can't help but notice is is at the heart of all the interconnection in scripture, no matter how you slice the data. I would love to hear your thoughts on these patterns, so please leave a comment if you find something interesting!

Sentiments Throughout the Bible

2011-10-11T07:50:00.000-05:00

Using sentiment analysis techniques frequently employed by marketers to measure consumer response to a product launch, OpenBible.info has posted a graphical analysis of positive and negative sentiments found throughout the Bible.

Sentiment Analysis from OpenBible.info

It immediately brings to mind the possibility of expanding this analysis by attaching these "sentiments" to individual people, time periods, or places. I always try to remember that the Bible is not simply a set of books. It is a collection of stories about people interacting with God and each other in real times and places. My main criticism of the above visualization and many more like it is that its focus is on verses rather than the subject of those verses.

I can hardly wait to combine the raw data behind this viz with MetaV and perhaps do a little visualization of my own. Ideas and comments are always welcome!

Dead Sea Scrolls Now Online

2011-09-27T00:02:00.000-05:00

Most Christians have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their importance to biblical scholarship, but few have ever actually seen them. Now, that no longer has to be the case. The Israel Museum has teamed up with Google to not only make the images of the scrolls available digitally, but to make them searchable with interactive English translation. Not only can you search the text on the Museum's website, but now it will show up in Google search results (including in custom search results on soulliberty.com) as well. They have even put a little bit of "flare" to it by animating the paper appear to be unrolling as you scroll through it. Check it out here: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/

The Volume of the Book is Written of Him

2011-09-14T14:12:00.000-05:00

When I first began exploring word clouds as a means of visualizing biblical data, the result using Wordle was little better than a jumble of words sized according to frequency, with random colors and angular variations to add interest. It's a decent proof of concept, but as I said earlier, it fails as a design concept unless it's intelligently combined with other elements. Since then, I have discovered more well-developed technology that can "auto-magically" create word clouds which are good enough to stand alone as an artistic element.

At least one tool, Tagxedo, bridges the gap between Wordle's overly simplistic automation and the manual processes required for intricate typographic designs such as maps made from words placed by hand, one by one. It's strength is in its ability to layout and color the words based on an uploaded image. I have re-created my original word cloud using words in the KJV (with some highly common words intentionally removed), laid out using an image of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns.

This tool allows you to save images in a range of useful formats as well as create your own products using that design. Interestingly, when I shared the above image with the Tagxedo creator, he pointed out the fact that the Tagxedo store features a few products already designed with Bible words, albeit from a different image of Jesus.

What I particularly like about this concept is that the usual images of Jesus are merely artistic imaginations which may not have anything at all to do with how he really looked. Instead, we get a truer, clearer picture of the Savior from the words he spoke though the writers of scripture. How much more appropriate is it to paint his image with those words?

Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me.

-Psalm 40:7

How People Share the Bible

2011-08-31T07:50:00.000-05:00

The Bible Gateway Blog has an interesting bit of analysis today on how people share the Bible versus how they read it online (based on BibleGateway.com statistics). From the post:

When people share Bible passages on Facebook and Twitter, they share individual verses 74% of the time and chapters only 9% of the time...when people read the Bible on Bible Gateway, they read complete chapters over 50% of the time and individual verses 20% of the time.

What I enjoy about these images (like the one above) is seeing how we can take massive amounts of data - thousands upon thousands of Tweets, Facebook shares, and website hits, then plot them out in a way that makes larger patterns readily recognizable. Those who know nothing of statistics or data gathering can visually compare social network activity with other types of online activity. This is possible because our brains more easily recognize patterns visually than in a massive spreadsheet.

I'm especially encouraged when I see this taking place with regard to biblical interests. It is God, after all, who gave us these communication skills and the cognitive abilities to interpret things with our eyes. When art and architecture was all the rage, we got the Sistine Chapel and Notre Dame - both of which are explicity meant to honor God. Today, information is the dominant cultural theme but it most often lacks any Christian concepts. It's about time we started catching up to those trends, and this kind of analysis is a good step.

UPDATE: The author of the Bible Gateway post has expanded on his methods and provided futher analysis on his website, OpenBible.info. If you're a data "viz wiz", you can also download the raw data for your own analysis (thanks for making that available!).

Data-Driven Hermeneutics

2011-07-11T05:49:00.000-05:00

One's approach to Bible study has great influence on a person's views about God and our relationship with him. The set of guidelines I prefer and recommend would be what's generally known as the inductive bible study method. I find it's a great way to let the text speak for itself before applying any pre-concieved ideas that may warp its intended, actual meaning. Of course, no single study method must be dogmatically practiced as long as the approach does not impose outside influences that may skew our interpretations (a.k.a "Sola Scriptura").

Likewise, a person's approach to understanding any other data set has a huge bearing on their eventual understanding of what that data represents. A flawed approach tends to produce false or misleading statistics, granting that field of study a special category coined by Mark Twain in his famous line: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." On a blog that I regularly visit, Flowing Data, Nathan Yau does a good job of giving examples of the right and wrong ways to analyze and present data truthfully. The recent release of his book Visualize This promises to be as good a resource as his blog. It comes along with a wonderful video (below) that illustrates some important points I'd like to expand on.

I couldn't have said it better myself. The parallels between this approach to statistics and sound hermeneutics are immediately apparent. Let's walk through each step and discuss how it corresponds to inductive Bible study and how I believe we can improve upon some areas.

Get Your Data. Normally we choose some passage that is manageable in the time we've set aside for study. When studying an entire book, it must be broken into smaller segments. This is a good way for individuals to dig really deep and meditate on certain points, but it can be inadequate and unnecessary for other purposes. Enough people over time have taken this approach, tabulated and published key information that can now be used alongside many other such resources to efficiently study the entire Bible as a whole. The data sets I've chosen come from renowned scholars over several centuries, now combined in one linked data set (MetaV).

Ask a Question. Once we've chosen what passage(s) to pick apart, we must make some basic observations. What people, places, or time frames are mentioned? Much of this can be gleaned directly from the text, but helps such as maps or time lines are often necessary to really understand where in the world that place is or what else might have been going on in that period of history. This is why MetaV includes a year assigned to every passage and why every identifiable place is given a latitude/longitude.

Choose your tools. These days we're stuck with either pen and paper or study software which does a great job of putting a microscope on the text, but nothing is yet available which can handle analysis of the entire Bible. If you're computer-savvy, you may be comfortable with various spreadsheets, databases, or statistical computation tools, but let's face it - not everyone just loooves to do stats in their spare time!

Explore. This goes along with the observations you may have when asking some basic questions, but now it may be expanded to look for trends, patterns, and differences. Like the video points out, it's useful to compare things according to categories, space, and time. The only real way to do this on a scale larger than a chapter or two is to take each place mentioned in the passage and find it on a map (hopefully one that corresponds with the time period you're studying) or take a similar approach to finding/plotting events through time. To help in that regard, you may find this interative visual to be useful. On a smaller scale, highlighting key elements by marking them with colors and shapes can help you identify repeating or contrasting phrases. Wouldn't it be nice, though, if your study tools did that for you, allowing one to apply this to everything in the Bible at once so you can spend more time thinking and less time marking? I think that day is fast approaching.

Get your story. Once you have some idea of what's being emphasized, compared, or explained, it's time to put it all together. What does this text actually mean? How does it relate to other stories? How does it relate to your own life?

Design your visual. It's just not enough that you understand it. You want to share what you've learned...but how? How might you communicate key points in a meaningful, truthful way without simply reciting the text or handing over a list of raw data? This is another reason why most analysis, both biblical and otherwise, is limited to smaller, more manageable bites. It's a fairly unique skill set to handle large volumes of facts and communicate them in a way that isn't overwhelmingly complex or else too watered-down for the sake of simplicity. I am finding more and more folks out there like Nathan Yau who are teaching others these skills and I'm learning a great deal from their online resources. I sincerely hope that the visuals on this blog do a decent job of that for you as well.

This is just one of the ways that I believe MetaV can be applied to broaden our understanding - taking the Bible as a whole, seeking common or diverging elements while remaining true to the intent of each individual passage. If you're looking for other ways to understand the data in MetaV, keep checking this blog for upcoming visualizations or do what I do: find sites like Flowing Data to get some ideas and "how-to" articles. Then, let me know what you come up with by leaving your comments below.

Open for Business

2011-07-08T14:32:00.000-05:00

Producing content for SoulLiberty.com, this blog, and projects like MetaV are a labor of love. We currently have no need or desire to solicit donations, but the next phases of MetaV will require some investment. Plus, we have received some requests for prints of our more popular graphics. To that end, today we are announcing the Soul Liberty store, powered by Zazzle. The products featured on this store will mainly be high-quality prints of the various infographics and other popular illustrations I have made for this website. We'll also have a few other items just for fun. Happy shopping!

Codes Within a Code

2011-07-08T03:32:00.000-05:00

Click the image above to go to an interactive, zoomable version

What you're looking at is a QR code. Anyone familiar with these would immediately recognize that it is unlike all other such codes - a distinction which will be explained shortly. They have become prolific in marketing campaigns because they allow smart phone users to point their camera at the code then get a quick response (QR) that usually takes them to a website with further information without having to remember or type in a long URL. It can also be used to share contact info on business cards, encode some bit of text, and much more. Those unfamiliar with QR codes can think of it as a souped-up bar code.

In thinking about applications for MetaV, I thought about ways to crunch huge amounts of information into smaller spaces so that a "big picture" is readily apparent while still making it possible to get further details on demand. While this illustration is not built directly using the MetaV database, is does represent this vision rather well.

I wanted to find a way to use this technology to bring people information about God rather than some product or service I'm trying to sell. An easy way to do this would be to encode a URL to some Bible passage. YouVersion.com uses this principle in its Facebook sharing tool, for instance. One could create a collection of these codes about a particular topic, but how might you arrange those codes in a meaningful way that represents the over-arching concept?

The answer I arrived at was the three level QR Code, above. The first level is a code that simply returns the text "God." The second level, shown in the colored squares which are normally solid squares that serve as alignment markers, represents the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The third level is the area with the smallest squares which again are usually a solid color arranged according to normal QR code specifications. These individual squares return 129 different Bible passages that tell us more about each person of the Trinity, the relationships between them, and our relationship to God.

Beyond the directly encoded text, this work is a sort of metaphor for the Trinity and the Bible itself. The allusion to the Trinity is obvious from the fact that three different levels of the code are used to represent a single Godhead. The parallel with the Bible is a bit more subtle, but just as relevant. Taken on the whole, everyone knows the Bible speaks of God. One has to get just a little deeper to know that it's talking about a Triune God. Go deeper with your study to discover more details in specific passages. Another interesting aspect of QR Codes that they have in common with the Bible is the "error-correction" properties of it. What this means is that some portion of it can be destroyed or be otherwise unreadable and yet the overall code retains its message accurately. When we compare Scripture with Scripture, unclear or isolated portions become understandable when put within the greater context.

I would encourage anyone with a mobile device capable of reading QR codes (all you need is a decent camera and a free scanner app) to play around with this on our zoom-able version. It works best with low glare and low ambient lighting, as demonstrated in the video below. You can also get this as a poster to put up in areas where tech-savvy people may take a second glance to dive into it and hopefully learn more about who God is.

Note: QR Code is a registered trademark of Denso Wave Incorporated in the following countries: Japan, United States of America, Australia and Europe.

English Bible Version Explorer

2011-07-01T06:49:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late joining the bandwagon on celebrating the 400th anniversary of the KJV, but here's my contribution to the mix. I found an interesting web site called Bible Reader's Museum which, among other things, has extensive listings of Bible versions throughout time. Being the chart junkie that I am, I converted their English Bible version list (used by permission) to an interactive graph of versions over time. It begins at quarter-century intervals and then changes to smaller intervals as you filter out the years. The list at the bottom filters along with it, making it simple to find one or several, then click the name to go to that version's website. It's amazing to see just how many translations there have been over the years. Take a look!

What's next: Graphing the Graphe

2011-06-20T11:06:00.000-05:00

For many in our day, to picture the Bible is to think of an old dusty book on the shelf with leather binding and golden accents. Its pages are so thin you're afraid you'll destroy them at every turn, or perhaps you believe the words on its pages will destroy you. I have taken the words from those pages and linked them with explanatory works in order to show you the Bible in a way that you've never seen it before.

Scripture contains stories about thousands of people over thousands of years in thousands of places. We can take those thousands of words and make them into a picture. The root word from which we translate the term "Scripture" is graphe. This same root word is also the basis for our English word "graph." How appropriate is it then to to translate the words of scripture into graphs as we use that word today?

Christians of the renaissance "visualized" the Bible with works of art that are now considered priceless. Now we can replace the oil and canvas with data and computers. I would contend that this approach is no less beautiful or creative. Now that the foundation has been laid, in the coming months on this blog I will bring forth the realization of this vision. Never before seen patterns may emerge. Beautiful structures may unfold. Readers will see the consistency of design in God's words and works through time, space, and the soul of mankind. This is truly an exciting time.

MetaV 2.0 Now Available

2011-06-11T09:44:00.000-05:00

MetaV 2.0 is now available to download as an Access database or as a group of csv files. I have attempted to make it as easy as possible to understand the structure of the data, but feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.

This is perhaps the most complex undertaking I've ever engaged in and I know it simply would be impossible without the ongoing guidance and helping hand of the Lord our God. There are many improvements that can and will be made in future versions, but the time for collecting information is past and the time for turning it into action is upon us. As I've seen from the response to my infographic, "Mapping God's Bloodline," visual presentations of biblical data can reach far and wide, gaining influence in some of the most unlikely sectors of our society.

MetaV provides the foundation for more visualizations of this type. With it, data experts can correlate biblical people, places, and timelines in ways not yet imagined. For the foreseeable future, I shall be focused on bringing the big picture of the Bible into view using modern data techniques. I welcome your ideas and would be happy to share on this blog any visualizations or analyses you have performed.

Click Here to go to the download page.

Knowledge Networks and the Tower of Babel

2011-05-01T04:05:00.000-05:00

I happened to come across a project today that maps the links between various Wikipedia articles to help understand the categories and topics that users find to be related. Normally I wouldn't share such a project on this blog, but since they used the Tower of Babel as an example, I thought it would be fitting. The project is from Sepans, called Mapped Wiki, and you can see their results below:

Visualizing the Genealogy of Jesus

2011-04-29T01:55:00.000-05:00

The last piece of MetaV 2.0, the "people" module, is almost complete [update: you can now download it here]. I began with some key genealogical information found on complete-bible-genealogy.com and am working on adding more detail available at marshallgenalogy.org. I'm seeking out new ways of visualizing this data because I've always been dissatisfied with the usual tree-like representation. That method works great if you're only dealing with a few generations at a time, but beyond that it gets messy. Just how messy is it? Take a look at one of my first attempts to show it all in one space.

First attempt at visualization

I made this using a tool called Gephi which is great for deep analysis of complex networks, especially social connections. Instead of a social network, I mapped blood relationships. But, not all of them ended up in the final view. The first filter I applied was to show only the male parentage, for two reasons: 1) the Bible generally lists longer genealogies by fathers only, and 2) interconnections with spouses and mothers create an intricate web which makes it far too difficult to follow on a large scale (as shown above). The second filter I applied was to remove any person whose ancestry could not be traced all the way back to Adam and Eve. These people and connections appear as distracting "floaters" like those shown below.

Floaters - families which can't be conencted back to Adam and Eve

None of this is to say that spouses, mothers, and "floater" families are unimportant. If they were, I doubt they'd be listed in the Bible at all. Rather, the intent here is to make long, complex chains that link from God the Father to God the Son easier to follow and understand. For many people, visual displays are easier to comprehend than a list of names spread across multiple books of the Bible. But, not every kind of visual display does the job. Besides the filters I've mentioned above, I experimented with different layouts. One idea was to straighten everything out so that different tribes could be easier to recognize.

Straight Layout

In many ways this defeats my original goal, which was to reduce the wasted space caused by traditional forms. The incredible amount of white space in this image gives one a difficult time in even finding a node (person) and traversing a vast distance from one person to another on a computer screen. In the end, I settled on a more compacted arrangement which is largely (but not totally) automatic using Gephi's "gravity" settings in a Force Atlas. To see the details, you can use a zoom-able interface (thanks to Zoom.it, which I highly recommend) or choose your favorite format on this page. The final layout is shown below.

click here for zoomable version

Progress Update

2011-03-19T06:17:00.000-05:00

A lot has progressed since I first posted the central parts of MetaV. At that time, I had only converted and indexed the text of the Bible itself. Since then, I've managed to add cross references, topics, time lines, readability info, Strong's Concordance, and locations. I've even made a number of tools to explore each "module," and one to explore the timeline, places, and text all in one place. But, what's next? The diagram below shows the modules I have envisioned so far to include in the database. Black outlines indicate areas of future development; white outlines are completed modules (tables).

Each sub-group has at least the main part of it complete, with one exception: People. What can I say? People are messy. I know there are a number of genealogies out there and a number of tools produced to explore them, but finding an openly available one in an appropriately structured file that's free for public use is proving difficult. Therefore, I expect it will take significantly longer to compile such a reference on my own using what I've scraped together so far.

I have chosen not to upload the updated database until I at least have people identified and tagged with basic relationship information (father/son, husband/wife). After that iteration is complete, I'll make that available and begin work on the remaining modules and other refinements at the same time as producing new, simple tools to explore the database. Any estimate on how long that will take would only be a guess.

Introducing MetaV

2011-03-09T13:55:00.000-06:00

I've spent some time already on this blog talking about the ideas behind MetaV: what it is, why it's different, etc. Now, the map and timeline data is complete and the first visual exploration tool is on our main site. This work is not licensed, so feel free to share, copy, and modify as you wish.

It's about time!

2011-02-15T12:37:00.000-06:00

One central idea behind this new tool called MetaV is to link everything in the Bible to a period of time, then use that to perform a search or put a passage in greater context. Today, this is one step closer to being real.

R.A. Torrey compiled the Treasury of Scripture knowledge which contains the most cross-references of any concordance available. It also contains a year associated with each passage. I have taken this data and plotted it along a timeline (below) in a way that I believe will be simple to understand and use when combined with other panes of information.

The concept comes from atomic mass spectroscopy. A simple strip with bars on it of varying colors or line densities indicates particular wavelengths of an element.

The same layout can be used for a timeline, substituting years for wavelengths and verses for particles of light where BC is denoted with a negative number and the darkness of the color indicates how many verses deal with that year, as seen above.

This graphic is based on Torrey's book, but in its electronic form it must be checked for data quality and completeness before being incorporated into anything more detailed. The simplicity of such a view, when combined with details from associated passages and other useful information has a real potential to make a complex, interrelated whole more understandable.

Egypt in the Bible

2011-02-12T12:04:00.000-06:00

With the recent uprising in Egypt, I thought it would be worthwhile to get a little historical context. What better place to go than the Bible? Take a look at this interactive map to see all the places in modern-day Egypt that are mentioned in the Bible.

Quality Interaction

2011-01-03T03:46:00.000-06:00

I've been out shopping for cars recently, and it has reminded me of one of the shortcomings I've noticed among Christian websites I tend to visit. As usual, I intend to fill this gap through our efforts at SoulLiberty.com. Let me explain.

Something I appreciate about car websites is that they put a lot of effort into showing you the main features of each model. I can see the inside and outside, and often do a 360-degree tour. In each view, I can see certain areas featured; click on them and find out more details, see a video, etc. Of course, a lot of this is designed to dazzle the buyer into an emotional state where he simply must have that car becuause "it's just so cool!"

But aren't certain things about the Bible just "so cool?" I happen to think so. Then, why not present things in such a way that conveys that feeling to the new or maturing Christian student? If a storytelling professor can make statistics look like the most interesting thing in the world, can't geeky web designers do the same with the most epic and fascinating story of all time?

Guttenberg invented the printing press for one big reason: to distribute the Bible to as many people as possible. That was a time when Christians were the master of new technology intended to carry out God's calling. Today, the most high-tech ideas are motivated by material gain or fulfilling other carnal lusts. How can we begin to turn this back around?

One place to start is by implementing today's technology to aid in teaching Biblical ideas. Yes, churches and ministries are always adopting new tools, but they were new to the world 5-10 years ago. One of my 2011 goals is to bring the Bible itself into a tool that is barely over a month old. That's the future. Right now, we have some catching up to do.

Go back to the car example: our website applied that years-old idea to the Ark of the Covenant. While a clip from Indiana Jones might invoke the "that's so cool" thoughts, I felt it would be better to make something different. What we have now is a 3-D model of the Ark that can be explored from the exterior and interior. You can click on icons to learn about key features, just like that Corvette you've been drooling over. It's interesting, informative, and biblical. It links yesterday to today through technology and by linking the Ark's symbolism to our daily Christian walk.

Ark of the Covenant Interactive Tool

What I am not advocating here is a wordly approach to evangelism with focus groups, high-pressure marketing campaigns, and so on. There's nothing wrong with advertising, however. Isn't that what evangelism is anyway - advertising the Gospel far and wide? I'm also not arguing that putting a little more glitz into a website will have a direct impact on the visitor's journey to salvation. I'm simply pleading for a higher standard. Give God your best each and every day in everything you do, and it will eventually rub off on others.

From Business Intelligence to Biblical Wisdom

2010-12-06T10:31:00.000-06:00

Let me share a story about how God orchestrates events in our lives to accomplish his will and help us find our calling. I started this blog not long after moving to a new department in my company, as I have mentioned before. The road I've been speeding down since then is worth describing.

My first attempt at getting the transfer failed. Another engineer who hired on at our location shortly after me got it instead. Later on, I discovered that the divine plan was better than my own. A few months after that first interview, another job in the same department came available, but this one was far better suited to my skills and one which I knew would be much more interesting to me. It would involve a great deal of database manipulation for reporting, analysis, and whatever else might need to be done with our computer systems that I could help with.

Around that same time frame, I was envisioning a draft concept for a bible search/study tool that I have coined "MetaV." All I had was the idea and an illegible sketch. I was certain that I'd have to invest in some new tools and steadily, patiently learn some new programming language to make it work with the database I had begun building. That all changed when I swapped jobs and began learning about newer ways to gather, compute, analyze, and visualize data.

Nearly every month I have learned of new tools and techniques which help me take leaps forward in various projects for this site and at work. Many times I just "happen" to discover them. As one who believes in God's omnipotence rather than luck, I can see how he uses things like this in "secular" circumstances to teach us and mold us spiritually. There is really no difference between our work lives and spiritual lives. God is everywhere, in control of everything and every part of our day.

The field collectively known as Business Intelligence includes players like SAP (Crystal Reports), IBM Cognos, and of course Microsoft (plus many others). Then, along comes Tableau. It turns out that the people that make the most annoying Facebook games collect and analyze user data in ways you wouldn't believe - and they use Tableau to do it. I thought: what if I could use that to analyze scripture? What if we applied business intelligence tools to find biblical wisdom?

Now, don't get me wrong - only the Holy Spirit can truly bring understanding of his words. But, having a tool that provides a view of scripture you've never seen before can be a big help in beginning that process. I am happy to report that Tableau does have a free version of their software for use with public data that I have begun applying to MetaV. Thanks to the awareness of new tools gained through my new job duties, I am using weeks-old technology to create things like readability graphics without having to learn any special programming or making any investment other than time.

With a little more of that investment, an integrated view of the entire Bible with a map, timeline, and details about each verse in a single interactive view is not that far away. Had I gotten the job I originally went for, I don't know that I'd be this far along in the process. I don't know that I would have found the tools to help me do the things that I believe God has equipped and called me to do. I do know that his timing and his plans are perfect. When that time is right, readers of this blog will be the first to discover an entirely new approach to bible study.

Readability chart

2010-11-20T07:46:00.000-06:00

I have been working on this Bible readability chart for some time now. I hope you find it interesting. Since Tableau came out with their new software this week, I was able to change the calculation based on a parameter - in this case, whether to calculate readability based on verse divisions or punctuation to decide sentence length. The interactive version of this chart is available on our main website.

Review: RefTagger vs. VerseClick

2010-11-09T14:14:00.000-06:00

For novice bloggers and advanced web programmers, there are two good tools available to automatically create a pop-up showing the text of Bible verses referenced on your site, as in: Rom 1:20. One is RefTagger from Logos Bible Software. The other is VerseClick, recently made available at AV1611.com. If you are interested in using a tool like this, here are some things to consider.

UPDATE: after writing this review, I learned of the BLB ScriptTagger from the Blue Letter Bible website. It is well worth considering along with the two mentioned here.

RefTagger

Highly customizable: If you know some basic web concepts like CSS, you can match the styles in the pop-up window to your own site theme. There is an optional toolbox to allow visitors to choose their preferred translation or web developers can choose the default version using the simple setup form. There are many other options shown on the RefTagger website.

Works with most syntax: There are all kinds of ways to reference Bible verses, making it difficult for a computer to properly recognize them. RefTagger works with most common syntax and it also works with some developing web standards such as BibleRef markup.

Integrates with Logos Software: Next to each verse link, you'll see an icon that takes the user to that verse within Logos Bible Software, provided the user has this software on their computer. To me, this is an unnecessary distraction. Few users are likely to want this feature and it adds a button that gets in the way of the normal flow of reading. It undermines the very purpose of the tool: to provide a seamless way to look up verses referenced without distracting the reader with a quote box or going to another resource in the middle of a paragraph. UPDATE: I am told that this feature is optional (see comments), but it is enabled by default and may be difficult the average blogger to disable.

Performance and Simplicity: It is quite simple to install this tool on any site. Just pick a few options and paste a line of code in the appropriate place. Unfortunately, its host of options slows down page loading. While it performs adequately in most cases, it could be much better in my opinion.

VerseClick

Not customizable: Perhaps later versions will allow for some options regarding colors and fonts, but right now you're stuck with a brownish-yellow background on the pop-ups. That said, the lack of custom parameters makes VerseClick perform much better in general than RefTagger (based on my experience - I don't have the resources to do scientific benchmarking). Furthermore, it does not advance the proliferation of corrupt Bible versions so overall I view this as a "plus."

Works with most syntax: Like RefTagger, most reference methods are supported. It doesn't recognize BibleRef markup, which is how RefTagger recognizes whole-chapter tags. VerseClick takes you to the whole chapter when a verse is clicked and since both tools limit pop-ups to just a few verses, this becomes a moot point.

Performance and Simplicity: As mentioned, I have found VerseClick to perform better overall than RefTagger. It is just as simple to install and use: one line of code to cut-and-paste.

If you aren't using either of these on your Christian website, I highly recommend adding this functionality for your visitors. It puts Scripture at their fingertips within whatever point the author is making. I use VerseClick for its use of only the time-tested KJV which ensures the verse shown is an accurate and complete translation, as well as for its superior download performance and absence of the distracting Logos button. The color styles of VerseClick happen to match the ones used on SoulLiberty.com, but if you find the yellow clashes with your design, I'd recommend e-mailing the creator to request the option to customize the CSS.

Playing with word clouds

2010-10-15T12:13:00.000-05:00

A lot of bloggers are using word clouds for various features now, mainly to make common post tags stand out. I happen to think it's a fad. Like Microsoft's WordArt, it can do some nifty things but doesn't really rise to the level of artwork that would be required for a valuable design aesthetic.

That said, it can be fun to play around with these ideas to see just how far you can go or perhaps lead to a better idea later. In that spirit, I present to you my word cloud made using Wordle and the text of the KJV (with words like thee, thou, ye, etc. removed).

Analyzing Cross References

2010-10-03T02:40:00.000-05:00

The Christian scriptures are interconnected in deep and meaningful ways which can sometimes be hard to discover. Scholars have compiled hundreds of thousands of cross-references over time, and modern computer whizzes have charted these references in beautiful and engaging displays. I have taken a new approach, which you can see below. It displays three measures: the number of verses in each chapter, the number of cross references in each chapter, and the ratio between the two.

In a moment I will share a few examples of the insights this visualization affords, but first I'll explain how I arrived at the idea for making this particular interactive tool. I began working several months ago to compile available data into what I call MetaV. The eventual goal is to link descriptive information to every word in the Bible and to help users interact with it in such a way that they can see the "big picture" of any passage, including people, places, things, and even cross-references. Naturally, this led me to google "bible cross reference data." Hit #1: Chris Harrison's visual showing over 63,000 references with colors indicating the canonical distance between the chapters and bars showing the length of each chapter.

Immediately, I was hooked on it. I'll confess: it still graces the background of my computer desktop. The reason I was so mesmerized is that he has packed a lot of information into a display that is simple at first glance then grows more complex and informative as you zoom in. It conveys the fact that the Bible is an interconnected whole. The density in some areas gives a general sense of which books may be interesting to us because they were meaningful enough for many other books to refer to it. And that nice, long, thin line towards the middle representing Psalm 119 just begs for attention while happily providing an axis of symmetry. It is art that fulfills it designer's stated goal:

...we set our sights on the other end of the spectrum –- something more beautiful than functional. At the same time, we wanted something that honored and revealed the complexity of the data at every level –- as one leans in, smaller details should become visible.

Mr. Harrison was kind enough to get me in touch with his collaborator, Christoph, who in turn provided the data behind the graphic (which had been updated to include over 80,000 records). Yet, I was also aware that this many cross references might not be enough for me. Further searching brought me to two more visualizations of a much larger data set - over 340,000 cross references. The first is from OpenBible.info, the same site which is the source for my Bible Places explorer. The second is found on the ESV Blog. Both of these are interesting in their complexity and verse-level detail, which adds a degree of information not contained in Chris Harrison's work. However, they both have a lot of redundancy - one could easily cut the visuals in half and get just as much information.

All of these are more useful in terms of artwork than for visual analysis and in-depth exploration. My expertise is in crunching numbers, not so much in making beautiful displays of them. I wanted to modify the idea of graphing hundreds of thousands of pieces of information in a way that makes certain aspects of it stand out. Just to make it a challenge, I combined the two data sets I found into one massive table containing 412,100 references once I filtered out duplicate records. The outliers you see above are chapters of the Bible which stand out here but would be lost in the haystack within the visualizations I've mentioned. While mine is nothing more than an interactive version of common graphical displays, it makes it easy for our eyes and minds to identify interesting points.

Right away, you can see that Psalm 119 lies lonely at the top-right because it is by far the longest chapter of the Bible and consequently has the most cross-references related to it. The orange circles stand in contrast because they have proportionately fewer cross references than other chapters. We might expect those to be the ones which are nothing more than long, detailed genealogical records. Two of the noticeable outliers fits that expectation (1 Chronicles 7&8) , but the others do not.

1 Chronicles 3, the brightest orange circle, is the chapter which details the construction of Solomon's Temple. Exodus 36&37, two other orange marks, give specifics about making the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant. The dimensions and construction materials of these things are rife with metaphors. Perhaps their symbolism is linked to other portions of scripture in ways we do not yet know an have not catalogued, or maybe they should continue to stand alone due to their uniqueness. On the other end of the spectrum, Romans 12 has more cross references for each verse than any other chapter. When you read it, you'll understand why. On average, every single verse has more then one reference associated with it. In all, 77 chapters of the Bible fir in that same category.

These are just some of the things that can lead a student of the Lord to discover more about him. We can search out the things we may normally pass over but which stand out in an analysis such as this. What can you find by searching through, selecting, and zooming in on these plots? What might you learn that you would otherwise overlook? Please leave a comment if you happen upon something interesting or the Lord blesses you in some way as a result of your studying these visuals.

Motivated by the Impossible

2010-09-26T08:16:00.000-05:00

With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
- Matthew 19:26b

After I graduated from one of the most prestigious institutions in America, the US Air Force Academy, I was filled with pride ... too much, in fact.  One of my first assignments was to create project reports from an online database which I had never used.  I met the challenge head on as any new military officer would.

My reply to the task was: “If it is possible, I can figure out how to do it no matter what it is.”  One of my newest colleagues who was familiar with this system quickly took the cue to initiate some “mentorship.”  Perhaps the hero persona of this higher-ranking Afghanistan war veteran compelled him to save his troops from the crash that a rookie like me could have caused by flying blind.

The system didn’t crash.  He showed me a lot, and so did some computer experts I had the privilege of working with in northern Japan.  At my next base, I had the same attitude toward a similar challenge - this time with a lot more knowledge and even less humility.  Once again, the system we had couldn’t do what we needed and the red tape involved with replacing it could wrap around the world a hundred times.  After following the chain of command all the way up to the person responsible for this system across the entire Air Force, he explained that what we wanted to do was “not possible.”

What self-respecting company grade officer would accept that as an answer? “Impossible? I’ll show you impossible!” A few months later I found a workaround solution and everybody was happy with the new process.  It saved some people a lot of work and gave others more control over the work they were interested in getting accomplished.

My intent here is not to boast of these accomplishments.  God has brought me a long way from that kind of big-headedness.  My point is that when others say something is impossible it is often because they cannot imagine many possibilities beyond their experience.  In that respect, inexperience is an advantage when guided properly.  With God’s leading and power, all things are possible.

The things I describe on this blog are part of my ongoing attempt to realize what may otherwise remain unknown and undone.  It is daunting to think of collecting biblical scholarship in such a way that you can see and analyze it all at once rather than picking through it a piece at a time.  It is a mountain of a challenge, but it is not impossible to move such mountains. Lord, help us!

Everywhere, All at Once!

2010-09-20T12:51:00.000-05:00

We have come a long way from the days when you had to choose between an unwieldy Bible atlas or else limit yourself to a handful of maps in the back of your everyday Bible. With the proliferation of free online mapping tools hosted by Google, Yahoo, MapQuest, and others, we have the ability to overlay practically any information we want onto satellite imagery or simple region outlines. Naturally, some industrious Christians have incorporated some of the information from that old atlas into interactive maps.

One of these is BibleMap.org which does a great job of helping you explore the places mentioned in a particular chapter of the Bible that you may be reading or studying at the time. Another approach is that of OpenBible.info which allows users to download place marks for Google Earth, either for the entire Bible or individual books. One limitation of each of these is that it is either difficult or impossible to see every place all at once without downloading additional software.

That's going to change right here, right now. Thanks to a powerful tool called Tableau Public recently made free for limited use on open-source data, we can download a file from a site like OpenBible.info and make some interesting comparisons. We can vary the colors and sizes of each place mark, filter for a particular place or book, and much more that can help us discover new insights or rediscover old ones. For example, the New Testament more heavily references northern regions and ... wait a second! Since when was Spain referenced in the Bible? And, just where are Gog and Magog, anyway?

Here are a few tips for exploring the information. Click the legend to show only New or Old Testament references. Hover over a place mark to see more info, or click on it to see all the references associated with that place. Click-and-drag to select more than one place. Use the arrow icon at the bottom to allow for zooming and panning around the map. Choose one or more books for other filter options. Click the name of a place in the data sheet to reveal its location on the map. Most of all, have fun seeing the Bible in a whole new way! Note: the map may take a while to load.

There are a few things to bear in mind, however. First, the country divisions on this map correlate to present boundaries, not the boundaries as they were in the past. Bodies of water or whole countries are shown as a single place mark, which can make things somewhat difficult to interpret. I did not compile the original data, but as near as I can tell it is limited to explicit references of a place by name; it does not include verses which describe an event which took place in a particular location but doesn't mention the place by name. Lastly, places mentioned during a time period before Noah's flood are not shown since the global flood would have reshaped the landscape enough to make its location impossible to accurately identify.

A New Bible Translation for the Information Age

2010-09-04T06:22:00.000-05:00

There is a lot of work being done in the area of Bible translation to reach people of different languages. One language we typically don't think about is the digital language read by computers. We have many options available to read and download digital editions, but as I have written before, these formats have limits. MetaV is a new digital version which makes it easier for programmers and non-programmers alike to link each word to useful metadata and perform a wider range of analysis.

Metadata is information that describes other information. Take a photograph, for example. The picture captures information on a scene which, when described some other way, may take 1,000 words or more. Information describing that photograph (metadata) might include: photographer, date, film type, camera settings, and location. Modern software uses this type of information to efficiently organize large sets of digital photos. MetaV organizes large sets of words using similar methods.

The main limitation in freely available digital copies of the Bible is that each line contains a full verse. What I have done with MetaV is break it down to individual words, with columns describing more about each one. Currently, it can tell whether the word is italicized, what punctuation follows it, whether it is the beginning or end of a parenthetical statement, and whether it is at the beginning of a new paragraph. Of course, it also stores the book, chapter, verse, and position within the verse.

This serves as a foundational building block to efficiently add more pieces of metadata for simple searches and advanced analysis. First, I'll add Strong's numbers. Then, location information, genealogical relationships, speakers, timelines, and nearly anything else that can be linked back to the root text. The diagram below illustrates how this information will be joined together.

Even before any new modules are included, some useful analysis can be performed, such as: readability statistics for individual books (or any subset of your choosing), writing style analysis (How long are the sentences and paragraphs? What words does the author favor?), or just simple word counts (How many italicized words are there? How many unique words are there?).

MetaV is a new translation in the true sense of the word - it "slides" the words to a new position to make it more readable by a database language. I have done nothing to remove words or change their meaning (as too many modern translations do) and have taken great care to ensure each programming detail is correct in every way. In the coming weeks and months I will be publishing results of some analysis made simpler by this new tool, so stay tuned!

Update 6-11-2011: Version 1 has been deprecated. You can download MetaV 2.0 here.

A Study of Biblical Proportions

2010-08-08T11:48:00.000-05:00

Sometimes we read about an object such as Noah's Ark or the Temple and wonder how big it was or how it compares to something else we're familiar with. A unique thing about the Christian Scriptures as compared with other holy books is that it contains far more detail and specificity about the things it describes. For example, we know the general dimensions of Noah's ark, how many days passed between each major milestone of that event, and how many people were on board. We know how many of each implement was in the Tabernacle (and later the Temple) and how many people were in each camp in the wilderness.

We are getting into a time period in which it is possible to quickly make some calculations about these objects and compare them to things we know of today. Search engines are now in the process of better organizing the world's knowledge in ways that make them not only easy to find, but easy to connect to other things that are similar. One such tool is called WolframAlpha.

They have a number of good examples showing the powerful capabilities of their "computational knowledge engine." I want to discuss how such an engine might be used to aid in Bible study. Consider the Ark of the Covenant. Just how big was it? Well, with the right data structure, one could search for that ark and would be presented with some "fast facts" about it, like the materials used to build it, where it went, and of course, its dimensions. With those dimensions, it would be possible to set up a programmed interface to plug those numbers into WolframAlpha to find its volume -- 5.6 cubits^3.

But, that's not all. It will also convert that result to something more relevant to us today: 19 cubic feet or 142 gallons. Currently WolframAlpha doesn't make a lot of volumetric comparisons, but give it time: it's still very new. One thing they can do, however, is compare lengths. So, an input of the perimeter of Solomon's Temple would tell you that you'd walk the same distance by going around the Temple as you would by walking from the nose to tail of a Boeing 747, or a little more than the perimeter of a city block in Manhattan. This takes something that is measured and communicated in an old, archaic unit and makes it more understandable to the modern reader.

Really, anything in the Bible that can be quantified can be calculated and compared to other numbers. As the big-name search engines attempt to organize and correlate all the world's knowledge, we have a wonderful opportunity to do the same with all the Biblical knowledge of the ages. We can make outdated units more interesting and relevant and use new technologies to help us better understand the things we read about God and his dealings with mankind.

The Groundbreaking Achievement of Clarence Larkin

2010-08-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

Every now and then people come across a classic scholarly work that for one reason or another seems to have been forgotten or at least taken out of the main stream of cultural influence although their truth is just as timeless as when it was originally produced. Clarence Larkin's book, Dispensational Truth, is one such treasure. It is still sold in Christian bookstores and has been referenced by popular authors like Tim LaHaye, but that's about the extent of it. His charts are available within Sword Searcher, which also has a good bio.

(UPDATE: the full text and images in Larkin's book are available for free at www.preservedwords.com and in Kindle format (proofread with redesigned cover), which you can get here. Currently, Amazon will not allow us to list it for free. It is being sold at the minimum price allowed and is DRM-free if you wish to copy or share it.)

To give you an idea of his influence over time, consider this: every illustration I've ever seen describing the statue in the vision of Daniel 2:31-45 is a variation of Larkin's original graphic.

Clarence Larkin's Illustration of Daniel's Vision

I can identify with this particular author because, like me, he was a young mechanical engineer with some experience in drafting before being called into ministry. While a pastor, he employed his skills toward creating exacting illustrations of the Bible. The Larkin Estate indicates that he produced 205 charts and illustrations, complete with biblical references and full explanations of each. The ones I find most impressive are his works titled "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth" and "The Book of Revelation."

Clarence Larkin's Chart: "The Book of Revelation

As you can see, the original illustration is a black-and-white print. While Mr. Larkin did produce color charts, those he published were not, perhaps due to technology or cost limitations on producing a full-color book back in the 1920's. I have found some colorized versions, but in my opinion they lack the original quality of his work. It has been on my to-do list for some time to make an attempt at converting at least one of these charts to a high-quality, interactive web presentation. Given the astounding detail of each chart, I'm not expecting to complete that task any time soon (any graphic designers out there looking for a project?).

He built these graphics at a time when no one had heard of the Bible being converted to a digital format. No one could yet dream of the complex visualizations made possible by advanced technology of the information age. I personally believe he was ahead of his time in creating ways to visualize related points in a unified whole that gives a consistent biblical picture.

Clarence Larkin gives due credit to the one who made such a work possible:

"With profound gratitude and thankfulness for the blessing of his Heavenly Father...in the hands of the Holy Spirit..."

Indeed, without the direction of the Spirit, no one man alone could accomplish this remarkable work. He also could not have done it if he had chosen to focus efforts on presenting and debating multiple theological views. On this point, the author states:

"[I have] sought to avoid such criticisms and to simply expound the Word of God as the Holy Spirit opened it up to [me.]"

It took three years to produce a book on just one theological view which he earnestly believed and was framed by nothing more or less than the scriptures. Had he gone beyond that into every wind of doctrine, three years would scarcely be enough to complete a discussion on the Book of Daniel alone!

Therein lies an area in which I believe it's time to shift our thinking about the way we produce and use Bible study software. Everything available today includes a host of commentaries, versions, systematic theologies...all of which tend to have conflicting viewpoints to one degree or another. Yet, when Christians gather together for Bible study, only one such view is presented. To do otherwise would lead to confusion and be time prohibitive to boot. The same holds true for the working man or woman today who has trouble finding time to even read the Bible daily, let alone sift through a full library of data.

The teacher of such a study would wisely consult multiple resources while praying for God's guidance, so in that sense today's study tools are great. But, I believe that in-depth study should be made possible for everyone, not just the scholars and teachers. One way to do this is to 1) make it free to everyone and 2) limit the information to only authoritative works which agree with those of the author of said software as guided by the Spirit. While I do agree that it's a not a good idea to limit access to multiple viewpoints, I do not agree that presenting an endless list of options to sort through accomplishes that goal. That kind of information overload actually makes good information harder to find, which is the last thing I want.

By restricting the database to a more popular-level summary based on detailed and reliable scholarlship of old (such as the charts mentioned above), I expect it to be possible for one or a few godly men to produce more advanced tools quite economically. They could be used by anyone and would contain the same level of accuracy, detail, and cohesiveness of the many works of Clarence Larkin and others like him. Anyone willing to help in this endeavor is more than encouraged to pray and if you feel led to do so, contact me by leaving a comment on this blog.

Finding Biblical People, Places, and Things

2010-08-01T12:38:00.000-05:00

I came across a video the other day that does a great job of explaining a concept that I am working on to implement in new Bible study tools. Take a look at what Metaweb is doing:

Today's Bible study tools have the same problem: they primarily use words in order to find relevant content from a library of sources designed to explain some passage or topic. If a user searches for the word "Paul," a good program would find all verses with Paul's name in them, some commentaries about his life, maps of his missionary journeys, and maybe show a long list of other included resources. But, what about the verses in which Paul is still named Saul? Would these tools help you easily discover that Paul was once a pharisee, or take you right to the verses in which he's mentioned in that role, without having to click through some chain of links or menus?

One way to find those verses would be to search a topical index for Paul which would list passages about the man regardless of his name at the time. But, a user would have to go specifically to a topical index instead of a verse search, and even then he won't find everything. Another problem is that people are often referred to by personal pronouns or as part of a group. So, if you searched for "Thaddeus" you wouldn't be taken to the verses which reference "the apostles" but don't list all of them by name.

The same things holds true for places. At dynamicbible.org, I can search for "Bethel," pick a verse I want to look at, and click that word to see it on a map. But, there are two places with that name and I only want to see the one dealt with in that particular verse. So, you can see how using words alone to search for biblical references won't return a full set of results or might return irrelevant things.

That's where I plan to help, except my goal is far more limited in scope than Metaweb. I'll start with the text of the Bible itself and then begin linking each word to location information, biographical information, or whatever else is relevant to that particular text. Thankfully, a good bit of this data is already available in different formats. If all the words in the Bible could be described as an entity (a person, place, thing, event, etc.) rather than just a string of letters, it would not only ensure that you find all the references to that entity (no matter what word is used to describe it) but also guarantee that you find the right results.

Keep an eye on this blog for more examples of the possibilities behind such a concept. Believe me, this is only the beginning!

Using technology to present biblical truth

2010-07-29T16:31:00.000-05:00

Since this is the first posting, let me introduce myself. I graduated from the US Air Force Academy with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Since then, I have held several positions in the military, business world, and in Christian ministry. In each role, I have found ways to work with information (databases in particular) to help myself and others sort out what that information really tells us about what's going on.

I have recently taken on a new role which has exposed me to more advanced methods behind what's referred to as Business Intelligence. I quickly realized that these techniques can be applied to the Bible to "zoom out" and discover patterns and relationships that you can't find with traditional study methods or tools. I will highlight others who have done work to this end in hopes of bringing their results together and develop them into an integrated whole.

I have previously laid out my vision for enabling the average person to find reliable information on the web as easily as many incredible tools that are available today free of charge. Soulliberty.com is a work in progress that will be one platform for applying these technologies to scripture and related information in commentaries, maps, media - you name it. To be perfectly clear: my primary goal is to present the Bible in a clear, understandable, and intelligent way so that more people can come to know its truth, power, and salvation.

To get an idea of the basics, consider how you might do online research for a new car or even decide what movie to go see this weekend. You can narrow it down by type, sort it by popularity and price (or what time a movie is showing), and see place marks on a map where that movie will be playing or where that car is sold. You are presented with media telling you more about it in the form of videos or interactive content. A common element is that the information is tied together in meaningful ways that help a computer sort through the information to find what the user is looking for.

I think it is possible to do the same types of things with Bible study software and make it available for free on the web instead of it costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. This blog will more fully explain specific ideas for creating new tools and implementing existing ones in ways that are easy enough to understand by a non-technically minded person while also providing enough detail for the up-and-coming programmer or designer to contribute their skills and time. I hope you find it informative and exciting to imagine the possibilities!