What’s Wrong With The Bible Project
What’s Wrong With the Bible Project?,“I have a question about this, I don’t mean this rudely or a mean way but… Can you be a Christian and not believe in hell?” R.R.the gospel“This video is truly a blessing. I’ve been watching your videos WWUTT and have them saved on my phone and on my laptop for the ministry. I have also seen The Bible Project videos, and I agree that some of them are good and really informational, but I’ve never had a chance to carefully discern the messages that are being given. Thanks to God for this video which made me realize the subtle errors that The Bible Project committed. Soli Deo Gloria.” Son“I think Mackie has been influenced by N.T. Wright. I like most of their videos. But there have been times when I have refrained from sharing some of their videos because I felt the picture of the gospel was incomplete or misleading.” Eternitypersonal pagegone as far as saying“There are many serious theological errors in The Bible Project and Mackie’s teaching. But because of contemporary evangelicalism’s superficiality, folks don’t even understand what’s going on. Thanks for addressing this. Very important. If you notice the commenters who are upset are unable to provide Bible support for their argument. They just want to complain about tone, etc.” Jay“Have you ever tried to reach out to Tim to clarify instead of blasting your brother in Christ? It would’ve been easier to seek understanding than assume or mischaracterize him.” Alem that
Reasons You Should Know About The Bible Project
By Tim Bechervaise2019-04-25T00:00:00+01:00
My initial reaction was: No when, last March, a friend asked if I wanted to do the Bible in a year through The Bible Project. Ive tried reading through the whole Bible before and failed miserably, barely lasting a week. Eventually I accepted, and last Monday a year to the day that we started I read the final two chapters of Revelation. Job done, Bible read.
First, a word on The Bible Project. It was started in 2014 by two friends, Timothy Mackie and Jonathan Collins. Using Mackies deep understanding of Scripture and Collins gift for visual storytelling, the two wanted to create something that would make the Bible more accessible. After starting with two videos, the project now has over 130 videos along with 200 podcasts. The videos are free to access and have been viewed more than 100 million times and in over 200 countries.
Ive loved the journey and here are six reasons why it has been an invaluable exercise
1. The story of Scripture
As anyone who has completed it will testify, reading through the whole Bible helps understand the overall narrative of Scripture. This is helped by the way The Bible Project, like other similar resources, orders the books. It has been fun joining the dots together and reading the books in a new light.
2. Accountability and friendship
3. Sermon support
4. Whats that about a talking donkey?!
5. Good toilet reading
6. Lions, chronologies and other difficult bits
Who Is Jon Collins
Jon Collins is an American former basketball player who is best known for his collegiate career at Eastern Illinois University between 198283 and 198586. After a professional basketball career he worked for Allstate insurance. Eastern Illinois inducted him into their athletics hall of fame in 1993.
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The Shema For Christians
The Shema is a beautiful prayer. Theres a reason why Gods people have been praying these words for millennia. They are simple words with the capacity to reshape the course of an entire life. The Shema can keep Gods love and loyalty in the forefront of your mind and drive you towards obedience, not out of obligation or duty, but out of love. The words of Jesus in the Gospel of John are obviously derived from the Shema:
The one who has my commands and keeps them, thats the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and I will reveal myself to him.
And remember whose love started this whole chain reaction of love leading to obedience.
We love, because he first loved us.
Shema Usage In The New Testament
As we mentioned above, the Shema became a twice-daily prayer within Judaism. It was so widely practiced in the second-temple period, Jesus himself grew up praying it. This prayer was formative for Jesus and he drew upon it in his teachings. He was once asked which command in the Torah was the greatest:
Jesus answered, The first of all the commandments is, Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.
In the book of Revelation, John the visionary drew upon this prayer to describe Jesus followers. Part of the Shema prayer in Deuteronomy 6:8 contains these words: You shall bind these words as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as symbols between your eyes. The physical location on your hands and between your eyes is a symbol with fairly obvious meaning. Your eyes are the place where you see and you use your hands for almost everything you do. This prayer was to guide the vision and action of every moment of life. This is why John the visionary says that in the new creation, when Gods people live in intimate proximity to God and the risen Jesus,
They will see Gods face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
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The Presentation Of Jesus Work And How We Are Saved
If you read all of point 2, well done. You probably can already guess where Im going here.
I quite like the videos presentation of Adams choice, Israels choice, Jesus choice. That is accurate. In Biblical Theology, Jesus is the new Adam and the new Israel, succeeding where they failed. Likewise it was cool to see the connection between the exile to Babylon and the ejection from the Garden of Eden. These are subtle points of Biblical Theology that Im impressed they managed to include in their video!
I felt that Abraham and Israel was presented as a bit of a failed experiment, rather than Gods good plan, but that might just be me. Its not the biggest point. But we do want to be careful to make sure we dont present God as a guy who took 3 goes to get it right.
However, the big problem is that the video leaves the impression that Jesus work essentially helps us make a better choice.
But the real issue is the overall impression left. So now humanity is presented with a new choice. It leaves the impression that salvation comes by finally making the right choice. The problem was that we made a bad choice, but now we have another chance to make that choice. And if we choose the way of Jesus we will be ok. This is essentially very liable to being heard as a salvation by repentance message.
But in a culture that thinks all religions essentially say, do good and God will accept you, I dont think this video goes far enough to explain the uniqueness of grace.
Things You Should Know About The Gospel Project
If youve ever attended a conference like The Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel, or For the Church, theres a good chance youve run across The Gospel Project. But what do you really know about this Bible study? Today, Aaron Armstrong, Brand Manager of The Gospel Project, shares seven things you should know about this resource.
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Bibleproject In 2021 And Beyond
In the final episode of the year, Tim, Jon, Carissa, and the CEO of BibleProject, Steve, reflect on our journey together in 2021 and look forward to some exciting plans for 2022 and beyond. Thank you to all of our listeners and supporters for your generosity and for joining us as we experience the Bible together.
- 18 min
Its Reaching The Unreachable
The Bible Projects highest percentage of viewers? Males, ages 18-35. That also happens to be the demographics with one of the lowest numbers of people going to church in the U.S. in it: A Pew Forum study found that young adults ages 18-29 are the least likely to attend church once a week or more. That age group also comprises the smallest percentage among all age brackets within evangelicalism and Catholicism.
Over 50 percent of our views on YouTube come from men ages 18 to 35, McDonald said. We’re reaching a demographic that is so often difficult to reach.
But thats not all. Geographically, the Bible Project is most popular in areas such as Oregon, Washington and New York states that are the least religious in the U.S.
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About The Bible Project
The Bible Project is a Portland based non-profit that utilizes short-form, fully animated videos to make the biblical story accessible to everyone, everywhere. We create videos, podcasts, and study guides that explore the Bibles unified story by focusing on its overarching themes and each books literary design. We are committed to understanding the Bible in its historical context and communicating its wisdom for the modern world.
We want to change how people read and use the Bible. For some, the Bible is used as a devotional grab bag. For others it is a instructional manual that fell out of the sky. And for many, it is an oppressive book of out-dated rules used to control people. We believe that the Bible is a divine-human book that speaks Gods word to his people. We think it points people to Jesus, who has power to change individuals and whole communities. When we let the biblical story speak for itself, we believe it has immense wisdom to offer the modern world.
The Bible Project is not part of any specific Christian denomination or tradition. Our mission is to help people see the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. We hope that people from all backgrounds will find value in this work, regardless of their religious or non-religious convictions.
The Last Pillar: Communal Literature Paradigm E11
Are there ways to read the Bible other than a private quiet time? For most of Church history, followers of Jesus read the Bible out loud in groups and passed along its message verbally. In this episode, Tim, Jon, and Carissa talk about what it means for the Bible to be communal literature and how knowing that might just change the way we experience it today.
- 1 hr 2 min
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A Critique Of The Bible Projects The Story Of The Bible
See the video first
Firstly let me commend The Bible Project. I am a massive fan of their desire to introduce the Bible to those who are not familiar with it. Its not an easy thing to summarise the Bible in 5 minutes! They have pulled off a well produced video, very high quality stuff. In particular, they seem to have worked hard to use language and concepts that skeptics and outsiders will understand. Thats a great thing, and we should all emulate them in this!
I also want to say how appreciative I am of The Bible Project. We have shown their videos at our youth group to help them understand overviews of books, especially books like Leviticus. I love what they do. So helpful! What an awesome ministry to help people understand Gods word!
But I have theological concerns. Of course in a 5 minute summary you have to leave stuff out. Thats not my concern. My fear is that in trying to use language that is understandable by outsiders they may have inadvertantly misrepresented some really important things.
Visual Faith And The Bible Project
Jun 18, 2018 |
What is the Bible?
People have tried to answer this question for years. Some say it is a hodgepodge of inspirational insights others see it as a controlling, oppressive rulebook. With definitions like these, how can we approach such daunting writings?
Enter The Bible Project.
Founders Timothy Mackie and Jonathan Collins wanted to combine the wisdom of the Bible with the modern creative form affectionately known as explainer media. With Tims rich biblical knowledge and Jons passion and knack for visual storytelling, The Bible Project was born. Two videos were created in 2014 and made available online for free. We are now a registered nonprofit and an entirely crowd-funded creative studio, made possible by our online community. We are approaching 100 million views in more than 200 countries, with over one million subscribers worldwide. We couldnt be more excited!
So what is The Bible Project?
Our videos and resources help people see how the Bible is one unified story that ultimately leads to Jesus. We believe the Bible is a literary masterpiece and offers divine insight for our modern world. We focus on the overarching themes in the Bible as well as the literary design of each book. Our commitment is to show others the Bible in its historical context. In doing so, we hope to inspire many to pick up this fascinating book and engage with its wisdom.
We have a variety of series that range in content, purpose, style, and length.
Who uses The Bible Project?
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Applying The Paradigm: Movements And Links
How do we apply the biblical paradigm to our own Bible reading? It starts with reading the Bible in movementsthe thematic patterns in which the biblical authors organized their ideas long before chapters and verse numbers were printed. In this episode, Tim, Jon, and Carissa introduce us to biblical movements and walk through how to identify and trace biblical themes on our own.
- 57 min
One Story Many Styles
The Bible can be broken into several categories of writing. Approximately 43% of the Bible is made up of narrative, from historical narrative to parables. Roughly 33% of the Bible is poetry, including songs, reflective poetry, and the passionate, politically resistant poetry of the prophets. The remaining 24% of the Bible is prose discourse, including laws, sermons, letters, and even one essay.
The Bible is an ancient Jewish collection of sacred literature made up of many different literary styles. Each biblical book uses a combination of all the literary styles to make its unique contribution to the story of the Bible. First, let’s take a look at the narrative style of storytelling.
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The Presentation Of God
I dont think God is presented accurately. A beautiful mind is an interesting description of God. Its not wrong if you already know that God is not just a mind, but also the sovereign, personal, almighty, holy, perfect Spiritual being that is completely unlike us. But many people today are practically Deists, in the vein of Albert Einstein, who believe in a mind behind the universe but in a way that is nothing like the Bibles presentation of God.
The language of creation doesnt help: a power to take the dark chaos of the uncreated world and bring about It sounds like God is a manipulator of existing substance, rather than the one who created everything out of nothing with just a word. Similarly with the way the creation of humans is described. The video doesnt say we were made, but rather appointed.
I would want a video summarising the Bible to present a clearer picture of the Bibles God, especially since the shortest summary of the Bible is that it is a book about: God. Also. since most peoples big problem with Christianity begins with misunderstanding God, this is a fairly big place to go wrong.
Review: The Bible Project Brilliant But Flawed
More By Richard Sweatman
Understanding and teaching the Bible can be hard work so it feels like a win to find a resource that can help us do it well. Over the last few years, many people have watched and enjoyed The Bible Project videos and started to use them more in teaching. In this post, I want to raise a few concerns about the theology taught in The Bible Project and invite you to think about how you use them for yourself and in teaching.
Firstly, though, let me say theres a lot to like about these videos. They are beautiful to watch and bring together words and images really well. They also provide lots of good background to books and ideas that would be unfamiliar to most of us. Its also great how they bring every book and theme back to Jesus. As they say on their homepage: Our mission is to show how the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus.
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The Presentation Of Sin
I always pay attention to how sin is presented in any gospel presentation or summary of the Bible. This is because a deficient understanding of sin leads to a deficient understanding of Jesus saving work and our place in it. Many skeptics struggle to believe that they are truly sinful, therefore it is difficult to convince them that they need a Saviour and harder still to convince them that hell is an appropriate punishment if they dont accept him.
So how does this video present sin? My concern is that it does not portray sin as primarily a crime against God. The topic is raised in the context of humanitys task on earth, which good. That is the appropriate context to discuss our failure to fulfil that task! But what is our task? Created to do meaningful work, says the video. I would have said: to obey, thank, and honour God .
The problem is that their definition of humanitys purpose is essentially horizontal. It lacks the vertical element that is at the very heart of our role as humans, the rejection of which is very thing that makes sin serious enough to be punishable by hell.
The choice to sin is described as a choice between partnering with God or seizing power. God is warning rather than commanding The consequences of sin are mainly presented as the natural results of the path, rather than Gods active judgment on their action .