Repetition and word frequency are important factors to take into consideration when engaging in Bible Study. For example, Paul’s frequent use of the words “joy” and “rejoice” in his letter to the Philippians should not be overlooked or dismissed by the reader. Something important is being communicated. Let me say again, one should pay close attention to repetition and word frequency when studying the Bible. When studying the Bible, let us all consider repetition and word frequency.
Okay, I’m sure you get my, cleverly-stated, point.
Back in the good ol’ days, Bible Thumpers were reduced to counting each word that occurred in a passage by hand. One “joy,” two “joys,” and so on. Of course, today we have handy computer programs and online tools to do the counting for us. One such tool is Wordle. Simply provide text and you are given a word cloud visualization of that text. The Wordle web site explains that it is “a toy for generating ‘word clouds’ from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.”
Of course, Wordle certainly isn’t useful for Bible study and teaching purposes only. In addition to being able to copy-and-paste in text, you may also provide the URL for any blog, feed or web page that has an Atom or RSS feed. This makes Wordle a useful tool for bloggers as well. Create a word cloud for your own blog or use Wordle to compare and contrast the words and themes that occur in multiple blogs or web sites.
Below are three Wordle word clouds I made for Genesis 1, 2, and 3 (click each for a larger image). You may have also noticed that the word cloud above was made for this blog post.
Do you use Wordle? How else do you make use of this tool? Chime in and comment!
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Tags: Bible, blogging, links, RSS, social media, study resources
Yes, wordle.net is a great tool for re-exploring familiar scriptures. We have been creating some enhanced wordles (post processing them with photo filters, lighting and other tools to make them more interesting) of LDS religious texts, including the Bible. I noticed our version of Genesis Chapter 1 had some differences with yours (you prominently feature "according", "expanse", "livestock", etc.) then I realized you must be using a revised version of the bible. Our wordle of Genesis Chapter 1 from the King James version is pretty striking.
http://www.mormonwordles.com/2010/genesis-chapter...
If you are really looking to get a feel for emphasis from word repetitions in your Bible study, you might be better off with the King James version (or move to the original Hebrew if taken to the extreme).
gary
mormonwordles.com