About 9 years ago, I started working on a Bible project that, so far, is nowhere near finished, but is still in the beginning stages. I suppose life got in the way, but it’s something I still have in mind to complete, unless someone else does it first. But for a little while now, I’ve had another Bible project in my mind that I don’t even know how to begin.

Basically, the first project would be an online, cross-reference Bible, where all verses that are related topically would be cross-referenced by clicking on a footnote. Then you can study each topic, or find verses that are related in another way (like New Testament quotes of OT), and such. I don’t know how far I want to take it, because you never want to jumble the screen with too much, and I’m not a program designer (yet), so I don’t really know how much I could do at this point, anyway.

But my “new” idea is a Bible Lexicon similar to the Harry Potter Lexicon that has now become famous. This would not be a Bible itself, it would arrange Bible topics, people, places, and things in a way that you could easily search (including a search form). The idea would be to aid in Bible study and history, like finding all events that happened in one town all together, hopefully enriching knowledge of the Bible and even possibly understanding. It wouldn’t necessarily be useful in every case, and it would not be a commentary, just definitions of things, with verse references and common items grouped together.

I know that this is a highly ambitious project, but with something like the HP lexicon out there being managed by a small group of people, I don’t see how it could be more difficult to do the same with the Bible, considering that its size is roughly the same as the sum of the HP books (if not smaller…).

Just as the HPL is arranged alphabetically, by book, by topic, etc., there would be multiple arrangements in the Bible Lexicon as well. Each book would have a basic overview, with people named, events that took place, and things like that. There are a million ways to do this,  but I’m taking most of my cues from their arrangement, changing and adding in a way that makes sense for the Bible, rather than a set of fictional novels!

Anyway, I think this is a great idea, because it’s something that can be done for practically any large book or book series, and the Bible is certainly a large book. The intention is not to trivialize the Bible’s importance, but rather to enhance understanding, clear up confusion in some cases, and overall provide knowledge (for free!) in one place, rather than having people searching all over the internet and books for conflicting information that is not helpful.

I’ll be starting on my own, but hope to find helpful assistance from people with vast Bible knowledge to edit or contribute.