Multiple news outlets have broken the story of a project which puts to rest a major argument supporting Darwinist ideology. It’s called the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) project , described as a “Google Maps for the Human Genome.” NPR reports some initial conclusions and their implications:
For decades, scientists thought that most of our genetic code was essentially useless — basically filler between our genes. Only a tiny fraction — the part that has genes in it — really mattered, according to this thinking. […] What has been called junk DNA is actually teeming with an intricate web of molecular switches that play crucial roles in regulating genes. The ENCODE project scientists found at least 4 million of these regulatory regions so far.
This is fantastic research. I do wish scientists had never called any of it “Junk DNA.” That idea was born out of the evolutionary paradigm that dismissed it as “useless filler,” like the failed “vestigial organ” arguments of yesteryear. Ideas like that hold back scientific progress.
Looking at it from the perspective that this code is here for a reason, placed there by an intelligent designer, curiosity is sparked: “What’s it here for?” “What does it do?” “Let’s find out!” No, the most important concept in biology is not evolution. It is the notion that biological structures have a function and their purpose can be discovered through scientific research. Evolution News has a breakdown of this story which confirmations intelligent design predictions.
This takes away nearly all the genetic breathing room anyone had left to insert mythologies about the development of life on Earth. The new findings are a major upheaval and I expect there will be more information going “mainstream” in the coming weeks. Are you as excited as I am?
For more information on this project, see the video below and Nature‘s website.
How can we know the Bible is of supernatural origin, and what makes it different from any other holy book that people claim to be from God? To answer this question, many focus on evidence we find outside of the Bible: archaeological studies, historical documentation, and advanced scientific knowledge – all of which can be very helpful to answer skepticism. These lines of argument are built on knowledge found outside the Bible, but there is one line of evidence that relies mainly on scripture itself: the fulfillment of prophecy.
First, let me briefly address the common argument that using the Bible to prove the Bible is circular reasoning. The Bible is not just one book. It is a collection of 66 books by 40 different authors. If it were one work by one author (like many other “holy” books), it would be circular reasoning. This article shows the predictions of prophets whose fulfillment is witnessed by someone else in another time period. In many cases, this witness is recorded in scripture; in a few cases it is mentioned elsewhere in history. This represents multiple, independent lines of corroborating evidence – not circular reasoning.
Divine Origin
Only a being which exists outside the constraints of time can give a detailed description of what will happen in the future with one-hundred percent accuracy. (In general, I have found those who claim a biblical prophecy has failed to be fulfilled are referring to end-times predictions they have mis-categorized.) This is a characteristic which sets it apart from the Qur’an and many other “holy” books which have no prophecies whatsoever or the Book of Mormon which is filled with false predictions.
Here I’ll describe just a few prophecies which I believe prove the Bible’s supernatural origin. See 100prophecies.org, CARM, or our Google Custom Search to find many, many more mind-blowing examples of God’s prophetic words given to his people who compiled them in what we know as the Bible.
Daniel’s 69 Weeks
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
– Daniel 9:25
This prophecy is part of larger discourse in Daniel 9:24-27 detailing the “seventy weeks” revealed to the prophet Daniel by the angel Gabriel. In verse 25, he indicates that the Messiah will come 7 weeks plus 62 weeks (69 weeks total) from the time a decree to restore Jerusalem was issued to the time the Messiah would arrive. Each “week” would have generally been understood by Jewish readers as representing a period of 7 years, each year being 360 days according to the Jewish calendar. This would make the time period 483 years (173,880 days) from the decree to the Messiah’s coming.
The decree came when Nehemiah met with Artaxerxes in 445 B.C. (Neh 2:4-8). That would place Messiah’s coming in 32 A.D. for the prophecy to be exact. The day of his coming was the Triumphal Entry recorded in Luke 19:28-48 (and parallel accounts in other gospels). Prior to that, he kept telling his disciples “mine hour has not yet come.” Chuck Missler argues that Luke 19:44 is in fact a rebuke for not knowing the “hour of they visitation” because the prophecy was so precise they should have been waiting for him that day. For a fuller explanation of this prophecy, other remarkable aspects of the “seventy weeks”, and discussion of the authenticity of this text, see Dr. Missler’s article.
Daniel’s Vision of the Four Great Beasts
Statue from Daniel Chapter 2.
The vision given by the Angel Gabriel in Daniel 7-8 is parallel to the vision of the statue in Daniel 2 (the photo on the right). I have chosen the former because of its specificity. Daniel records not only the symbolism but the interpretation of it which lines up perfectly with the history of the nations listed.
Daniel 8:20 names the kings of “Media and Persia” symbolized by a ram with great power. This matches the Medo-Persian empire as recorded by many historians. Daniel 8:21 names the king of “Grecia” symbolized by a goat which overtakes the ram from the west. Here again, the names and geography match the record of the Greek Empire and the conquest of Alexander the Great. Finally, he says four kingdoms will arise when the Greek Empire falls. Though he did not name these kings, they were: Ptolemy, Lysimachus, Cassander, and Seleucus.
Far more could be said about the sequence of events, specific symbolism, and other details which Daniel would not be able to manipulate to show he was a true prophet. See this article by Kyle Butt for a more thorough analysis and defense of this prophecy.
The Reign of Cyrus
Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; (emphasis mine)
-Isaiah 45:1
Here Isaiah names a king who did indeed gain great power without much resistance. It was written at least 100 years before Cyrus was even born, let alone had risen to power. This is yet another prophecy which could not have been fulfilled by a group of people wishing to validate what they foretold. Chuck Missler has a good article on the authenticity of Isaiah and the reign of Cyrus.
Destruction of the Temple
Jesus explained that the temple in Jerusalem would be torn down all the way to its foundations in Matthew 24:1-2 (Also see the prophecy in Daniel 9:26 and parallel accounts in Mark 13:1-2 and Luke 21:5-6.):
And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
Josephus, a historian who was also a Jewish Priest (i.e. did not view Jesus as the promised Messiah), recorded the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. The lack of any mention of this in the Gospels is further evidence of their authenticity and early writing. If Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were tossing in mentions of fulfilled prophecies to support their stories, why would they all leave out such an important event? Surely this would have lent more weight to Jesus’ words and given them reason to make up this evidence as well. The more likely explanation is that in fact the Gospels were written beforehand and the truth of Jesus’ words were recorded by others at a later date. Read more about this event here.
Jesus Christ
In addition to Daniel’s vision listed above, over 300 prophecies about the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were made in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament (see a complete list here). Some are more open to interpretation than others, but the sheer volume of messianic predictions is undeniable. Like the things mentioned above, there are details about place names and sequences of events which shut out vague interpretations and would also be out of Jesus’ control if he were just a man. These include his ancestry, birthplace, the national reaction to him, the amount of silver exchanged for his life…it is simply overwhelming. Rather than deal with specific prophecies in this category and the possible objections one-by-one, I will address them more generally and again point to our search tool for further research.
Common Objections to Prophecy
Many who are skeptical of prophecy in general would argue that the wording or symbolism is loose enough that it can simply be re-interpreted to fit history. Consider this prophecy from Nostradamus which supposedly predicted the 9/11 attacks in New York City:
Earthshaking fire from the center of the Earth
Will cause tremors around the New City.
Two great rocks will war for a long time,
Then Arethusa will redden a new river.
I could see how this might fit the World Trade Center attacks, but it could match any number of other events as well. What sets apart prophecies like this from the biblical ones is that the latter includes very specific details which cannot be interpreted multiple ways. The sheer volume of messianic prophecies further narrow the range of possibilities so that not just any old “Messiah” would be able to claim he fulfilled biblical requirements.
Others would say the text was manipulated over time to support a religious agenda. This accusation fails for a number of reasons. First, we have copies of the Old Testament, prophecies and all, that date back hundreds of years before Jesus was born (see the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls). This means if anyone altered the passages about him, it happened in the New Testament.
But, does that work? The people who were still around in the years following Jesus’ ministry would certainly have refuted not accepted utter fabrications of events they would have known something about. Paul, before he was an evangelist, was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He had deep knowledge of said prophecies and a hatred for all who followed Jesus. He would not only have reason but also the influence to expose such a fraud. Instead, he repented and accepted the “Gospel Truth.” The video below is a good discussion with Lee Strobel talking about how he viewed these issues when he was an atheist and after he became a Christian.
Further objections and theories about how the Gospel writers must have invented this intricate story quickly become self-contradictory and sound more like an ancient Jewish conspiracy theory than a reasonable, objective look at the evidence.
How Will You Respond?
This is more than an academic exercise. God didn’t just make (and keep) the promises he gave about people and nations that died long ago. He also makes promises about things yet to come which matter to you and I. There will be a day when Jesus returns to fulfill the “end-times” prophecies, and when that day comes we better know where we stand. Those who repent of their sins, seek forgiveness through Jesus’ blood shed on the cross, and receive the Holy Spirit will be with him in Heaven. Those who run from his truth will choose a worse fate – an eternity in Hell.
Do not make that choice before honestly examining your heart to know whether you reject the sure word of prophecy because it “doesn’t hold water” or if it is because you are looking for any reason at all to deny the God who sees all things from beginning to end. Do not be deceived by yourself or by false teachers, for you know not the day nor the hour when it will be too late to turn back.
Scientists routinely study people’s behavior as part of humanity’s quest to better understand ourselves and our universe. Christian theologians use the Bible as their guide while traveling along that same quest. Since the scientific community has a higher percentage ofatheists and agnostics than the general population, they approach studies of humanity with a strikingly different worldview from Christians. So, what happens when scientists and theologians try to go about understanding each other?
A recent article on PhysOrg, “God as a drug: The rise of American megachurches“, presents a study on the rise of American Megachurches. Unlike many such studies on religious subjects, it is not an attack piece. It does, of course, ignore God’s role in conversion and largely attributes the growth to sensory and emotional experiences – no surprise there. From the article:
As part of their study, Wellman, Corcoran, and Stockly-Meyerdirk analyzed 470 interviews and about 16,000 surveys on megachurch members’ emotional experiences with their churches. Four themes emerged: salvation/spirituality, acceptance/belonging, admiration for and guidance from the leader, and morality and purpose through service.
Our modern perception of science is that it is an objective search for truth, but we often forget that science is conducted by people. Those people are subject to the same influences and biases as everyone else. While the application of certain methods can reduce the error caused by human imperfections, we cannot deny that paradigms, axioms, and presuppositions heavily influence the world of scientists.
To illustrate this, Creation-Evolution Headlines rewrote the PhysOrg article as though a theologian had conducted a study on the growth of Darwinism. The result of this fictional study is a strikingly accurate description of how many Darwinian “evangelists” view their role. Consider the same paragraph, above, re-imagined from the opposite perspective:
As part of their study, Weller, Corky, and Stocky analyzed 470 interviews and about 16,000 surveys on society members’ emotional experiences with the conferences. Four themes emerged: materialism/scientism, conformity/unity, admiration for and desire for acceptance from peers, and a sense of duty to fight creationism in public outreach.
Both articles are a good read, so check them out. Do you agree that scientists can be influenced by each other in ways that affect their conclusions? How do you think this shapes the narrative of “religion vs. science?” Leave a comment below.
Today, the shortlist for the Information is Beautiful Awards was announced – and one of my graphics made the list! This is the first-ever open contest to find the best information visualizations around the world. I am quite honored to be among the top 25 finalists in the data visualization category with my entry “A Visual Harmony of the Gospels” (further explanation here). This and “Mapping God’s Bloodline” made the long list. I was surprised to see the less popular one advance to the next round. Winners in each category will be announced at the end of September. One special category is the Community Award which will be open for voting until September 24th (click here to vote). So, this post is to explain more of my perspective on these awards and why you should vote for my entry (and tell your friends, too!).
Data visualization, broadly defined, is an attempt to make complex sets of facts more understandable though the use of visual design elements. As the amount of data we create each year continues to rise, so does the popularity of its illustrations. The likely places to find such graphics are in scientific studies, journalism, political propaganda, and special interest blogs. However, it is unlikely to find much in religious pursuits. For this reason, few of the websites which curate the best visualizations have a “Religion” category (my work always ends up in the “Lifestyle” section).
I’m attempting to change that.
The Bible is more than just a story book or a manual for morality. It is a record of history that spans thousands of years, mentioning over 3,000 people and 1,200 places using 790,685 words to document the details. Scholars have catalogued 400,000 cross-references and grouped passages into 125,000 topics. How are all these things connected? Which ones are mentioned most often (or least often)? What can this tell me about God’s design of history? Data visualization offers another way to answer these questions by piecing together the massive volume of information and condensing it to visually comprehensible designs.
These awards offer an opportunity to display a different approach that uses modern techniques to portray timeless truths. It is another chance to bring Christianity to the worldwide marketplace of ideas. While I’m confident that God’s truth will ultimately prevail, I know I am an imperfect ambassador of the knowledge he has given us. That, and we live in a sinful world where truth is not clearly seen. So, I need God’s help and I need your help. Please pray for my ongoing efforts and particularly for this award. Share this post with others and ask them to take a moment to vote for “A Visual Harmony of the Gospels.”
Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, there is a monetary component to the award. The Community Award winner will get $1,000. Other award categories range from $250 to $5,000. If I do win in one or more categories, the proceeds will likely go toward furthering my efforts in this area.
The ultimate goal of MetaV is not simply to collect biblical data. It is to make that information easier to navigate and understand. This is the lastin a series of posts outlining the roadmap for MetaV, a database of people, places, passages, and periods of time found in the Bible.
Existing tools
The tools page on SoulLiberty.com includes several interactive visualizations dealing with readability, Paul’s life and journeys, and cross references. Most importantly, there is an interactive explorer which allows the user to filter by any combination of location, time, or canonical reference. These were all made by plugging the data from MetaV into existing applications, namely Tableau Public and Google Maps.
Current efforts
I am working to improve upon the widely popular graphic, “Mapping God’s Bloodline” by making it more interactive. Users would be able to zoom/center the graph by searching for that person’s name or click on a name in the graph to see details about him. The platform for this application is Flash and will be built such that it can be integrated into third-party software or migrated to a mobile (tablet) app.
Others have contacted me about using MetaV in a more full-featured piece of software (still at the very early stages of development). I also plan to experiment with the feasibility of loading data into Silk – a new platform for dynamically linking and visualizing data and pages. You can follow progress of this at bible.silkapp.com
Long-term efforts
MetaV will eventually become a suite of applications, all designed for different functions. On the web, it will be about next-generation search which is geared toward displaying knowledge about a subject rather than a list of resources you must dig through to discover that same knowledge. For mobile devices, search will be combined with limited visualization capabilities. On more powerful desktops, fully interactive, integrated visualizations (maps, family trees, timelines, word usage, etc.) will take Bible software to the next level.
After absorbing over 50 hours of apologetics lectures and debates on topics as simple as an overview of Genesis and as minute as cave formation in New Mexico, my friend and I had an idea. We seriously considered condensing the information in our vast, overpriced DVD library into a series of short video clips to deliver the key points in a way that would be more engaging to our generation and easy to share online.
We never got past the first script, but I am happy to report that several ministries with superior skills and funding have had the same idea in recent years. Answers in Genesis now has Check This Out, The Institute for Creation Research produces That’s a Fact, and Creation Today has my personal favorite: Creation Minute. These video series focus on foundational issues surrounding science and the Bible, but what about the other important questions of life?
Now, Mark Spence of Living Waters teaches on these broader topics in a series of apologetics videos taken from the Way of the Master TV Show. I was blown away by the quality of not only the teaching but also the production that goes with it. Unlike those old lectures, these videos get right to the heart of some of the most-asked questions about Christianity or religious beliefs in general. Everyone has time to watch three minutes (or less) of non-stop, hard-hitting apologetics on the questions that matter most.
You can watch all 10 videos below or click a link to jump to a specific clip.
This is the fourth in a series of posts outlining the roadmap for MetaV, a database of people, places, passages, and periods of time found in the Bible.
Timeline
The Bible is not just one book, it is a collection of 66 books. The 40 different authors of those books often tell the same stories, though emphasizing different aspects. A key way to piece together all the details of a story across two or more books is to arrange the passages chronologically. MetaV currently tags verses with a year (from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge), but more detail would be needed to accurately sort chronologically.
Specific Dates, Different Calendars
We are far enough removed from these events that it is hard to trust specific dates offered by historians (such as James Ussher). That said, adding this level of detail gives us a reference point to correctly sequence events programmatically. It’s hard to reconcile exact dates because calendar systems have changed a great deal over time. We can get close by adding up lifespans or correlating events with archaeological records. Perhaps the clearest difference is that the Jewish prophetic calendar is based on a 30 day month for a year of 360 days. This is an important thing to know when studying Daniel’s 70 weeks or even Revelation. MetaV will eventually include not just our Gregorian Calendar but Jewish calendar dates as well.
Named Events
Specifically identifying not only dates but particular events (or pericopes, if you will) allows more possibilities for dynamic timeline creation. At higher-level views, the event name (i.e. “resurrection”) may suffice. These headings appear in most bibles but naming systems vary widely. Once a naming system is chosen, this data will be included in MetaV.
Date of event or date written?
The Bible includes not only historical books but also poetic and prophetic works. For those passages that are poems or prophecies, the dates listed indicate when that section was written. This distinction isn’t necessarily clear, and in the case of prophecy the event spoken of may be a known date other than the date of writing, it could be a date in the future, or a combination of both. This disambiguation will be added to MetaV in the future.
This is the third in a series of posts outlining the roadmap for MetaV, a database of people, places, passages, and periods of time found in the Bible.
In addition to a concordance, the back of your Bible will likely include a set of maps. Commonly you will find a map of Israel, Jerusalem, the Exodus, or Paul’s Missionary journeys. The data in MetaV is intended to help programmers dynamically create maps based on any set of passages selected. It comes from OpenBbile.info, which gives a latitude and longitude for every place mentioned in the Bible with a known location (or a well-educated guess).
Historical borders
The problem inherent in assigning every place a latitude and longitude is that it represents a country or region with a single place mark at that country’s capital or geographical center rather than drawing a border. While it has become an increasingly simple matter to overlay modern borders on a map, it is a monumental challenge to do so with historical borders.
One obvious reason for that is that we may not have a detailed map of those places from each time period. Another challenge is that instead of creating an overlay representing a single point in time, we must define borders for every period of that country’s history. Just look at how much Israel’s borders change from one century to the next! Fortunately, MetaV already includes a timeline which can be used to grab the right border overlay for that time period whenever someone manages to draw them.
Place Hierarchies
Cities are places unto themselves, but as borders shift they may be part of one empire in 400 B.C. and part of another empire in the first century A.D. What is needed, especially as an aid in (loosely) defining historical borders, is an explicit assignment of each landmark to a city, each city to a country, and each country to a region. Scholars know a lot of this already, it just needs to be systematized and gathered together so we can more easily answer questions like: “Was this city I’m reading about part of Rome or Babylon at the time this story took place?”
Ambiguous references
Just as people can be discussed with pronouns (he, she, they, etc), places can be referred to as “here”, “there”, etc. While it may be simple to understand where “here” is when reading the text, searches looking for “Jerusalem” may only find passages with that exact name. A more robust search to find all references to that specific city must have these ambiguous references defined.
The Modern World
MetaV is not only about linking people, places, and periods of time to the passages that tell their story; it is also about helping people see how the Bible relates to our world today. There are many resources which can give a wealth of data about places, including:religions, population, income, literacy rates, and government type. Consider a study on prophecy where you’re exploring the places that various prophets mentioned in relation to the end times. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know some things about how that country looks now when discerning where we may be on the prophetic timeline? These data can be integrated programmatically through tools like the Wolfram|Alpha API since the latitude and longitude are already defined.
Other Improvements
Like the names of people, names of places usually have a meaning behind them. J.B. Jackson’s Dictionary of Proper names will be a good place to start working up name meanings for places.
As atheists grow bolder in the absence of such boldness from christian leaders in the Western world, we have begun to find new terms to describe this group. Typically, we call them the “New Atheists” – ones who do not simply lack belief in God, but actively assert that God does not exist and “evangelize” their worldview. Now, I have found a better word proposed by Robin Schumacher, a blogger for the Christian Post. He proposes the term “Hatetheist” to describe those who cannot help but espouse their hatred (not just disagreement) with theism, especially of the Christian variety.
Schumacher raises a number of points that resonate with me (and I suspect most who engage in any debates with atheists), such as:
…atheists keep Christians honest where our apologetics are concerned, and they are helpful in showcasing what the philosophy of naturalism espouses and where it logically leads. Although we disagree on theological matters, I’ve found atheists to be respectful, intelligent, and understanding in many of our discussions. They have thought through their positions, present them in a well-organized manner, and are happy to consider contrary positions and opposing arguments to their stance.
In contrast, he says, “discussing theology with hatetheists is an exercise in futility.” He lays out 8 points describing what sets the hatetheist apart from other atheists. Below is my attempt to boil down his comparisons for simplicity.
Atheist
Hatetheist
Respectful
Name-caller
Uses names “God”, “Jesus”
“Invisible sky fairy”, “Jewish zombie”
Recognizes intellectual equality
Believe they have superior intellect
Considers and addresses arguments
Uses red herrings, dodges questions
Recognizes limits of science
Adheres to scientism
Universally critiques all gods
Focuses on God of Christianity
Promotes freedom of religion
Promotes freedom fromreligion
Does not see Christianity as a threat
Fights against threat of Christianity
These distinctions are important because they can help discern how best to respond or approach an unbeliever. While it may be a good idea to continually engage with an atheist for evangelism or other discussion, Schumacher warns against such continued interaction with hatetheists. He gives a number of scriptural examples for this conclusion, which is summed up with a quote from Richard Weaver’s book, Ideas Have Consequences:
“Nothing good can come if the will is wrong. And to give evidence to him who loves not the truth is to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation.”
If you often engage with atheists online, I would strongly recommend reading his entire post. Do you agree that we should sometimes disengage with an unbeliever, or is it always advisable to keep the dialogue going?
This is the second in a series of posts outlining the roadmap for MetaV. Previously I laid out changes planned for tables involving people. This article will discuss changes to concordance related data.
Concordance
Few things are more commonplace in the back of study Bibles than a concordance. MetaV contains Strong’s concordance, which is the most widely used, compiled by David Troidl as a contribution to the Open Scriptures project. It can be hard to imagine improvements on such a “staple”, but allow me to offer a few ideas.
Definitions and word origins
First, the definitions in MetaV include some details about word origins and both the long and short definitions given by Dr. James Strong. By splitting these three elements into their own fields, some advanced tools can be made. Take, for instance, “adynatos” (G102). It comes from G102 which comes from G1 which is of Hebrew origin. I can think of many visualizations or programmatic comparisons to find similar words throughout the Bible or simply understand the meaning of that word more fully.
Proper Names
Strong’s Concordance includes many proper names of places and people. In order to more deeply integrate the distinct parts of MetaV, these proper names could be linked to the place ID or person ID in those tables. I have found these activities helpful in finding gaps, inconsistencies, and other potential errors in corresponding data sets.
Other Improvements
A minor improvement can be made in the near future to remove accent marks from transliterations for better readability.
That’s all for now. Keep an eye out here to learn how we can improve upon data describing places and periods of time, or find out about the applications being developed to explore this data.
This is the first in a series of posts outlining the roadmap for MetaV, a database of people, places, passages, and periods of time found in the Bible. Much work has gone into developing it, but there is much work left to do. There are gaps to be filled in, new data to add, and (most importantly) applications to be developed which aid in data exploration. This roadmap provides a thorough understanding of the improvements I currently envision. It does not include any timelines for completion of these ideas.
People
When we study the Bible and come across a person, we’d like to know a few basic things about that individual which provide some background for understanding his life and how his experiences relate to the story we’re reading. MetaV provides that context with family relationships, some basic biographical information, and explicit identification of the person named. As an example of the latter, consider that there are 26 unique individuals in the Bible named Zechariah. MetaV makes it clear whether that passage is talking about the well-known prophet or one of the other 25. Or, the opposite problem may occur in which one person goes by more than one name such as Paul (originally Saul) or God himself who goes by many names.
Unambiguous, Thorough Searching
To that end, some work remains in identifying names which are not always easy to process programmatically. These may include possessive forms (like “Aaron’s”) or in many cases where the name of a person is also used to describe a place (like Israel). Even more ambiguous are personal pronouns (him, hers, we, they, ours). We know they describe a person and can usually identify that person through normal exegesis. It is time we recorded that knowledge in order to build upon it.
By including that level of detail in MetaV, we will be able to find verses which refer to a group of people but never mention them by name. A good example would be Jesus’ disciples. Any place which references the “disciples”, “apostles”, “the twelve”, etc. would be a reference to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etc. even though they are not discussed by name. Unless and until this is defined at word-level detail many of these verses would not appear in search results for “Matthew” (or another disciple for this example) meaning the search would not return some pertinent references.
Biographical Details
Other things we’d like to know about people in a “quick reference” context window which are not yet defined in MetaV are: official title, occupation, name meanings, or even a brief summary of the person’s life. We would also like to know what books of the Bible that person may have written. Again in the case of Zechariah: are you reading about the person who wrote the book of Zechariah, or a different person with the same name? We also know the birth and death places for some people. Future revisions to MetaV will link these places to the “Places” table for more context.
Relationships
The relationships defined in MetaV today are limited to family relationships. But, we interact with others outside our family in the context of work, school, and play. People of the Bible are no different. A set of data defining these relationships for people in the New Testament already exists as part of the Semantic Bible project. This data can be integrated into MetaV and then expanded upon to include Old Testament figures.
People also form groups. The disciples are a group. The Israelites are a group. Much like today’s social networks which readily find a person’s group membership, MetaV currently has identified members of the 12 tribes of Israel and the people listed in Jesus’ genealogy. Clearly many more groups must be defined, but this is a good start.
Communication
The Bible is God’s communication to man. Within that, we see God talking to prophets, people talking to each other, and writers speaking to readers. Wouldn’t it be nice to clearly identify who is the sender of a message and who is the intended recipient? Well, the folks at Crossway have tackled the first part of that using Mechanical Turk. They produced a dataset identifying all the speakers of the Bible and, thankfully, released it publicly. Once it is “translated” to work with MetaV, I can begin the process to show recipients of what is being spoken (or written).
That’s all for now. Keep an eye out here to learn how we can improve upon data describing places and periods of time, or find out about the applications being developed to explore this data.
At times when dealing with someone who wards off simple truths with oddly complex arguments, it can be helpful to illustrate that same argument in a different way. I had an opportunity to do exactly that when observing a conversation on Twitter between a Christian apologist and an atheist. The typical points were raised: there is no scientific evidence for God, evolution is a better explanation of our origins, Christianity is about money and control over the “sheeple”, the Bible can’t be used as evidence, and who would want to believe in such a wrathful God anyway?
Below is one way to illustrate the absurdity of those challenges. If we relate the universe to the Twitterverse, this is how those arguments would sound. The twitter account names have been replaced with “Christian” and “Atheist” in brackets.
[Christian] perhaps you should reconsider your belief in the existence of [Atheist]. What looks to you like an account from an intelligent being operating outside the Twitterverse is more likely the result of a process of continuous evolution giving the appearance of intelligence.
A better explanation is that Twitter has evolved an ability to respond to environmental stimulus more efficiently than its competitors such as the Blogosphere, Tumblr, WordPress, etc. This evolutionary advantage has helped it multiply its accounts at a far greater rate than others. These findings make it clear that no explanation other than the normal interaction of electrons manipulating common alphabetical codes is necessary.
Another possible explanation is that the followers of this being known as [Atheist] are skewing the data in their favor, perhaps motivated by money-grubbing or to exert control and influence over other tweeters.
The only proof anyone has yet offered that he actually exists are words which claim to be written (or at least inspired) by him. Obviously they were fabricated by his followers. Why should anyone believe their claim, especially when science can account for these phenomena by appealing only to the known operation of semiconductors instead of some mythical Tweeter? If his followers wish to claim that anything outside the Twitterverse actually exists, the burden of proof is on them, not us.
Finally, why would anyone actually WANT to believe in such a mean, vindictive Tweeter? Many who still believe the existence of such beings find it much more satisfying to follow a more friendly, less judgmental one.
I have recently made a few updates to MetaV. In the near future I will begin posting a detailed roadmap to lay out what improvements are planned in the short-term and long-term future. Here are the updates in this version 2.1.1:
Added sibling, half-sibling, and child relationships (note:these could be determined before via a query but I found it’s easier to have them pre-defined in the table)
Filled in some missing references in “PersonID” field of main MetaV table
Indicated proper names versus man woman etc
Added PeopleGroups table to define tribes of Israel and Jesus’ Genealogy. More groups will be added later.
Removed names not found in KJV from alias list for consistency with other tables. (Some alternate spellings existed previously but do not correlate to the version chosen for MetaV.)
That’s all for now. Many more improvements are planned and updates will appear here as they are completed.
Just watch this video, read Google’s write-up, and imagine a similar search tool designed to explore Bible knowledge. Then, you’ll understand the idea behind MetaV. But please remember…I’m not Google, so it’s going to take a while to get this far.
