Categories
Analysis Hermeneutics/ Exegesis The Bible

Answering Big Questions With Big Data

The words of scripture create a tightly knit fabric; exciting pictures emerge when we weave them together with silicon and electrons.  The field of Big Data is rapidly expanding the possibilities for quantitatively and visually analyzing text as complex and rich as that of the Bible.  With it we can more easily study language structures, writing styles, or discover hidden codes.

Textual Analysis

cross model

One of the more difficult areas of big data is text mining.  It is “unstructured” in the sense that it isn’t arranged in a way a computer can easily understand.  Machines have a very difficult time with natural language, though major search engines and other startups are making great strides in that area.  For the most part, language is analyzed according to word frequency or proximity to other words of a known type. I know of at least two practical examples in biblical studies.

First is Steven Boyd’s work in the RATE project.  He presented a statistical approach to determining whether a passage is prose or poetry.  Specifically, he looked at the distribution of four types of finite verbs in sections that are indisputably poetic and those which are prose.  We can then take a text in which the genre is controversial (Genesis 1:1-2:3 in this case) and compare the distribution of verb forms to appropriately categorize them.  Boyd’s study was limited enough that it wouldn’t be put in the big data category but the techniques would be similar with a much larger set of passages.

Another project published at openbible.info explores the “sentiment” of every biblical event. In basic terms, a program calculates the frequency of words generally considered to convey a positive sentiment vs. those that are more negative.  This approach is more useful to marketers studying customer reaction to their brand than serious biblical analysis but I do think it’s a good starting point and will prove more useful as language processing algorithms become more advanced and widespread.

Bible Codes

A far more well-known and controversial field is that of Bible codes.  To even approach a debate on the significance or meaning of messages some claim God encrypted in the Bible, we must have good data to back it up – and lots of it.  Consider a well-known example: by taking every 50 letters of either Genesis or Exodus, it spells out the word “Torah.”  To argue for or against the notion that this is evidence of divine cryptography, we must know how likely it is we’ll find the same phenomenon elsewhere.  That means gathering writings in the same language from the same time period as well as books from other languages and periods.  In other words, big data.

Books, software, and videos abound with claims of similar discoveries from simple to more complex and unlikely phrases.  I have not gone through the statistical rigor of verifying or refuting the claims myself, but some seem quite compelling.  In any case, newer technologies and mathematical discoveries are sure to shed new light on this subject as time passes.

Other Big Data Applications

Fresh possibilities abound, from authorship analysis to readabilityn-grams and much more. It is an exciting time to be involved in big data programming and visualization.  It won’t answer questions about where we come from, why we’re here, or where we’re going any better than God’s words have already spoken, but it does have some potential to expand our understanding of those words.  In what ways do you think big data could aid Bible studies?

Categories
Books Hermeneutics/ Exegesis Prophecy The Bible The Last Days The Savior Theology

Isaac Newton’s Extensive Theological Writings

Isaac Newton is renowned as one of the greatest scientists of all time, but many are not aware that he spent more time writing about theology than about physics.  Now you can see digitized versions of his biblical commentaries thanks to the Israeli Library.

via JERUSALEM: Israeli library uploads Newton’s theological texts | Health & Science | CentreDaily.com.

Categories
Application Hermeneutics/ Exegesis MetaV The Bible Vision

Data-Driven Hermeneutics

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.

  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. 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!
  4. 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.
  5. 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?
  6. 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.

Categories
General Science Hermeneutics/ Exegesis Interpretation The Bible The First Days

Creation Seminar 6 – Hovind Theory

If our universe and life on Earth didn’t evolve through natural forces, what did happen? Kent Hovind explains the Bible’s historical account and backs up his faith with sound reason.