Hidden Threads

The foundational concept that makes Codex Serendiptus unique is the idea that every word in Scripture is connected to every other word by invisible threads: thin gossamer strands that intertwine and connect the fabric of Scripture into one majestic tapestry. My goal is to build a tool that will display those threads in vivid and easily comprehensible ways -- both graphically and textually.

Any student of the Word knows the fundamental rule that a verse can only be truly understood in its context. What is less commonly recognized is that the true context of a given verse is not just its immediate context, but the entire corpus of Scripture. All the concentric circles of context surrounding a verse must inform our interpretation of that verse. The hermeneutical principle usually cited in this regard is "Scripture interprets Scripture".

To truly comprehend and appreciate a given work by Rembrandt, you must first understand how he was influenced and shaped by his contemporaries, by his mentors and his predecessors, and by the sweeping history of art that conveged upon him in that focal point of creativity. We need to recognize something similar in the Bible. Of course, with art we may consider those ripples of influence as mere "happenstance". But with Scipture we have something more: here we have an intricately crafted work of literature, a book whose singular Author has carefully embroidered every thread and theme in precise and intricate ways, binding the disparate strands into one harmonious story. Moreover, this Author utilized the creativity and personality of indivdiual men: men of deep faith who were devout students of the Scriptures handed down to them, and whose theology and thought patterns were therefore greatly influenced by each other and by their predecessors.

Of course, I am not saying anything novel or surprising here: Ephesian 2:9 must be interpreted in light of Ephesians 2, and of the book of Epheshians, and of the prison epistles, and the Pauline epistles, and all epistolary literature in the NT, and of the entire NT, and of the entire Bible. Multitudinous threads of Scripture converge on this verse (and on every verse, by different routes) and amplify its meaning and message. The fundamental goal of the Serendipitus tool is to gently and lucidly unwrap those threads and to reveal them in unobtrusive but meaningful ways.

And, to that end, I aim to harness all the technologies of web design, data visualization, information science, and computational literary analysis at my disposal.

Viz tool–from cells to strata

A fascinating visualization tool created by a researcher at the Scripps Research Institute gives an intuitive breakdown of the relative sizes of the internal structures of a cell. This animated graphical tool can morph the complex cellular structure into a highly simplified geometric version enabling direct comparison of the various organelle volumes. Check out the superb video on the above link to see a demonstration.

The analog to this tool in terms of textual analytics might might categorize the primary topical themes of a given book or chapter, organize them sequentially into color-encoded geographic regions, thus enabling the side-by-side comparison of multiple books (or perhaps the chronological progression within a single corpus or sub-corpus.)

Windows 8 tablet

Just read the unfortunately named gizmodo post “Designing Windows 8 or: How to Redesign a Religion”. Giz interviewed Sam Moreau, the Director of User Experience for Windows, Windows Live and Internet Explorer – the guy who has spent the last 5 years re-imagining Windows from the ground up with Windows 8. A fascinating read. I can certainly imagine CodeX living on that machine!
One of the things that really struck me from the article was the way they are re-thinking Search. (I’ve slightly modified the quotes below to condense a couple different statements into one, and to apply the discussion for this blog):

So any apps that have registered for the Search contract,—basically you build an app, then you say, "I'm gonna use this API, which means I'm doing the Search contract," Then they get to show up in this list whenever app A has a Search moment….

So as long as CodeX is designed with this API in mind, we can play along with all the other big boys. Here’s a good example (once again, edited slightly):

Imagine I had typed "crown." The results for hangover are very different in Internet Explorer on Bing versus Netflix. Let's say I've got a bunch of apps: Netflix, Hulu, Wikipedia, CodeX:Serendipitus, whatever. Each time I click one of those they get to render what they have, their best foot forward for "crown." And it may be very different things. Google gives you this homogenized version of the internet for a query. Apps, in this one box that drives the query across all the other apps, lets each app give you the best version of what they can do for "crown." Maybe you can get WebMD to describe dental procedures.