Bible Word Clouds: A Tool for Finding Main Themes
As I mentioned in a previous post, I am currently working on a Master’s Degree which has a data analytics element. Last week, I listened to several lectures on data visualization tools and how you can use them to notice patterns in the data. One of the data visualization tools mentioned was “word clouds.” Word clouds are particularly helpful for extracting the most commonly used words in textual data. This got me thinking: are there Bible word clouds out there? And if so, how could I use them in my Bible study?
What are word clouds?
You might not be familiar with word clouds, so here is a quick definition I found that clarifies what I am talking about:
Word clouds or tag clouds are graphical representations of word frequency that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a source text. The larger the word in the visual the more common the word was in the document(s).
BetterEvaluation
From this definition, you see three main characteristics of a word cloud:
- It shows you the most frequently used words in a text
- Words used more frequently are larger than words used less frequently
- The words are put together in a “cloud” i.e. a visual made up of the words
Here is an example of a word cloud from my post “We Need Worldview-Confronting Preaching:”
By doing this data visualization, I can quickly find the most frequently used words in the post without having to go through each paragraph and find repeated words myself. In this case, “worldview”, “worldview-confronting”, “God”, “culture”, & “beliefs” seem to be words I used repeatedly. From this, I can start to generate hypotheses about the post, even if I have never read it.
For example, I could reasonably assume from the collection of most-used words that the post focuses on how God’s word confronts the beliefs of the culture. Or I could hypothesize that when the post says “worldview-confronting”, it means the Bible addressing beliefs commonly held in the culture. Notice I said “hypothesize”. My conclusions based on mere word frequency could be wrong. So after looking at the word cloud, it is imperative that I then read through the full text to understand the context and to check the conclusions I came to based on the word cloud alone.
Where can I get Bible word clouds?
Thankfully, Bible word clouds already exist online for you to use. Blue Letter Bible has created word clouds for each book of the Bible as well as the Bible as a whole, the Old and New Testaments, and difference sections of the Bible. They are very visually appealing and the best part is you don’t have to create your own Bible word clouds by importing Biblical texts into an online tool.
You can find all of these Bible word clouds here. Take some time to look through them. Maybe pull up a word cloud from a book you are studying. Since the word clouds already exist and are made for you, this could not be easier for you.
How can I use Bible word clouds?
As I have mentioned before, repetition is one of the ways a Biblical author communicates to you, the reader. Repetition can be for emphasis or point to a main theme or draw your attention to something that is important to a Biblical author. Therefore, one of the most important things you need to do when you study a book or a passage of Scripture is to look for repetition.
This is manageable for small passages or books, but oftentimes it can become time consuming to go through a longer book of the Bible to find the repeated words. This is where Bible word clouds can help. Just quickly glancing at a Bible word cloud for Isaiah, for example, will give you at least a starting idea of the main themes in Isaiah without having to go through each of the 66 chapters by hand and find what repeated words.
Now, it is important to keep in mind a Bible word cloud is simply a visual tool to find repeated words. It will not interpret the text for you and it won’t even tell you which words are important or not. All it is doing is bringing the most used words to the surface for you to look at. You as the Spirit-empowered interpreter need to analyze the results, think about what the word repetition means, and then continue studying to see if the conclusions you hypothesized were correct.
This is especially important with Scripture since a word cloud takes all the words out of their original context. The last thing you want to do is come to a conclusion from Scripture without taking the context into account. With that said, I think there are a couple use cases in which Bible word clouds shine:
- You are about to start studying a book of the Bible and you want get an idea of what words you should look out for as you work through the book.
- If you are trying to figure out the main themes of a book, you can start by looking at a Bible word cloud and hypothesize some main themes based on the most used words.
- If you want to compare two books of the Bible based on their emphasis, comparing the most frequently used words in each book will give you a starting point.
Conclusion
A Bible word cloud is a great starting point in your study or as a supplement to help you think through the main themes of a book. Don’t treat it as a magic bullet or expect it to interpret a text for you. Always remember: it is a visual tool, nothing more.
However, using a word cloud for a Biblical text could not be easier. Blue Letter Bible has Bible word clouds already created and ready for your use. So look at a couple for different books of the Bible. Try to deduce main themes from these clouds and then go into the text to see if you were correct or not. Used properly, word clouds can become useful tools in your personal Bible study or sermon preparation.
The Tools page contains other helpful aids for your personal Bible study, sermon preparation, and more. Click here for more personal Bible study tools. If you found this post helpful, share on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get more content.