What if you could read the Bible alphabetically? Or research for Bible topics alphabetically? Well some folks have provided a new kind of Bible, not exactly a translation nor a dictionary either. Its simply called Bible The.
This version of the Bible has the entire text re-organized alphabetically such that certain words and topics can be easily compared and/or read in context with others.
“Using a custom made piece of software, we take the entire text of a book, and reorganize it alphabetically,” says Sideline Collective, the international team of designers, writers, and programmers behind the project.
“That’s right. Each book completely reorganized from A-Z. This distills each text down to its lowest common denominator. It highlights the importance people tend to place on the order of said words – and their meaning – and allows for new and interesting interpretations of the written word, in much the same way as an abstract painting might.”
“The result is a reductionist interpretation of the text that reveals some fascinating observations,” it says, adding that data shows the Bible “skews towards a positive bias.” For example, “good” is used 720 times, “bad” only 18. “Love” is used 308 times and “hate” 87 times.
“Happy” is used 28 times, while “sad” is only used 11 times, and “life” is used 451 times, contrasting the 371 instances of “death.” Additionally, there are 94 “angels” to 55 “devils,” 96 “saints” to 48 “sinners,” and 302 “blessed” to a just three “damned.” Meanwhile, there are 269 “enemies” to 49 “friends.” According to Sideline Collective founding member Joseph Ernst who recently told CNet that the group decided to rewrite The Bible’s algorithm “so that it can be seen and analyzed without the author’s bias.”
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