Sixty-Six Clouds: Visualizing Word Frequency in the Bible
My taste in art doesn't run to the sentimental. There are no paintings of glowing cottages on my walls, no feel-good mottos stenciled with leafy borders. Popular religious art tends to be pretty kitschy in my book, which is why you won't bump into me in the "gift" section of the Christian bookstore. What can I say? I'm an austere, logocentric kind of guy.
Which is why I find this so appealing:
Brad Thomas plugged the text of the NIV into Wordle.net to study word frequency in the various books of the Bible. The more common the word, the larger it appears in the resulting word cloud. And in addition to being informative, these clouds have an aesthetic quality to them, so he decided to make them available in both book and poster form. There's also a video showing each of the 66 word clouds making up the Bible:
For more info about the project, including how to order books and posters, check out Sixty-Six Clouds: Visualizing Word Frequency in the Bible. And here's a clever way to make use of the posters, courtesy of Chaplaincy Matters:
I am currently using 66 clouds to make a timeline around my office wall that will contain when the books of the Bible were written and other religious events over the centuries. I will finish the timeline with what our school has been doing over the past 5 years (missions etc). This will not only make a visually interesting and stimulating display but will be a great learning tool.
That probably takes more wall space than I have, but it sounds pretty cool.
J. Mark Bertrand is a novelist and pastor whose writing on Bible design has helped spark a publishing revolution. Mark is the author of Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World (Crossway, 2007), as well as the novels Back on Murder, Pattern of Wounds, and Nothing to Hide—described as a “series worth getting attached to” (Christianity Today) by “a major crime fiction talent” (Weekly Standard) in the vein of Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, and Henning Mankell.
Mark has a BA in English Literature from Union University, an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, and an M.Div. from Heidelberg Theological Seminary. Through his influential Bible Design Blog, Mark has championed a new generation of readable Bibles. He is a founding member of the steering committee of the Society of Bible Craftsmanship, and chairs the Society’s Award Committee. His work was featured in the November 2021 issue of FaithLife’s Bible Study Magazine.
Mark also serves on the board of Worldview Academy, where he has been a member of the faculty of theology since 2003. Since 2017, he has been an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He and his wife Laurie life in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.