A team of creatives have used software to rearrange every word in the King James Bible in alphabetical order to allow for possible new interpretations.
In a statement, the group behind ‘Bible The’ described how the software is designed to remove the influence of word order.
"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," they said.
The King James Version is an English translation of the Bible that was published in 1611.
‘Bible The’ represents the first time the new software has been used by Sideline Collective, the group of creatives who came up with the idea.
Speaking to Cnet, Sideline Collective founding member Joseph Ernst said: "The end result is an entirely new Bible, with its algorithm rewritten so that the book can be seen and analysed without the author's bias.”
Previous such analyses of the Bible have tended to focus on the average word length or number of words per verse. 'Bible The' produces some interesting statistical soundbites: the word “love” is used 308 times compared to just 87 uses of “hate”; the word “good” is 40 times more common than the word “bad”; and there are 269 mentions of “enemies” versus just 49 of “friends”.
Although ancient texts and software code might appear to have little in common, Ernst sees the Bible and other seminal books as precursors to the algorithms of today’s world.
“They shape humanity's thinking, much like social media does now," he said. "So it seemed like an interesting place to investigate."
'Bible The' is available as a limited edition 1,364-page leather-bound volume or alternatively, can be downloaded in digital format.