Engineers using AI to translate the Bible into new languages. Large language models simulation the language of Scripture to answer modern theological questions. A Reddit user who asked ChatGPT to write a bible story about Jesus accepting transgender people. New apps that allow people to chat with biblical characters like Moses, Jesus and even Judas Iscariot.
Along with workers worried about their jobs and conspiratorial types worried about a robot takeover, many scholars and pastors worry about what AI will mean for biblical interpretation. As people increasingly turn to AI to answer their theological questions, how will these technologies shape our reading of the Bible?
Before we weigh the pros and cons of AI tools for Bible study, we should consider a deeper question: Why do we want AI to help us interpret the Bible? We apply tools to the Bible because we believe they fit the task of biblical interpretation. What does AI solve? What need does it meet?
The history of American Bible interpretation may provide us with some answers.
Long before modern computing, the American Bible publishing industry was full of extrabiblical reference materials: concordances, commentaries, and charts. New printing methods made publishing increasingly efficient as literacy rates increased, so more Bibles and Bible reading guides were printed.
According to historian Seth Perry in his book Biblical culture and authority in the early United States, the proliferation of concordances has uniquely shaped American religious history. They correspond to American philosophy: rather than listening to a religious authority interpret the text, the concordances allowed to the average reader let the Scripture be interpreted. The notes did not come from a church tradition or a biblical scholar, but simply referred to other parts of Scripture. The ideal of Bible reading was aptly described in the title of a popular Bible published in 1792: Brown’s Self-Interpreting Bible.
The proliferation of Bible reading aids has encouraged a particular type of reading. The concordances shaped habits toward what Perry calls “indexical,” “discontinuous,” and “citational” Bible reading. Rather than reading larger chunks of Scripture in their literary context, people have been trained to view Scripture as isolated data points.
Our interest in the Bible as data re-emerged in the mid-20th century. In the midst of the Cold War, a particular way of reading the Bible…dispensationalism– has become increasingly popular. This theology has spread not only through theological works but also through fiction such as the bestselling Left Behind franchise, and these fictional accounts of the Rapture and the end times. shaped the theological imagination American Christians.
The Bible plays an important role in these stories, as those “left behind” struggle to understand how events unfolded. Historian Crawford Gribben’s account of the fictional Rapture, Write the kidnapping, notes that many of these novels portray dispensational theology as obvious, even axiomatic. The characters in the novels read the Bible without any help or guidance and come to dispensational conclusions by reading the text alone.
A novel of the period, The Omega Project by Pentecostal evangelist Morris Cerullo, takes this approach and applies it to the new technology of the 1980s. In the story, the Israeli prime minister recruits a group of computer programmers to create a “databank of unfulfilled Bible prophecies” to address the recent rapture. This is a fictional account of Bible interpretation, but it describes an approach to Scripture shared by many Americans. “We are computer programmers, not philosophers,” says one character.
Even before the average Christian could use computers to interpret Bible prophecies, these stories subconsciously communicated that the Bible could be organized and treated as separate data points, independent of theological knowledge or guidance of the Holy Spirit. Especially in the 1980s, a time of international instability and fear of nuclear war, many Christians were drawn to methods of biblical interpretation that gave them great certainty about their immediate future. They were attracted to the idea that the strangest parts of the Bible were understandable if only we applied the right tools, like plugging data into a computer.
Today, the dream of a computer-programmed “self-interpreting” Bible appears to be a reality. Even before the latest AI Bible tools, online concordances and Bible study software appealed to our desire to see the Bible interpret itself. Now we don’t even need to look at the concordance on the back of our Bibles. We can simply click on a hyperlinked word to see each time the word is used in Scripture or to read relevant cross-references.
Theologian John Dyer, in his book Screen people, examines how digital resources shape evangelical reading habits. Many participants in Dyer’s study talk about using digital tools to easily find “keywords,” conduct word studies, or look up passages. These “quick wins” are only possible through relatively new technology, but the underlying approach to Scripture is as old as America.
Bible reading habits have always been shaped by technology – from scroll to codex to printing press. But this surprisingly coherent story highlights a deeper origin of our reading habits than just the technology available. Our continued desire to treat the Bible as “given” reveals a theological challenge for American evangelicals. While other traditions rely on liturgy and creeds to understand Scripture, American evangelicals prefer to “stick to the text.” We tend to value personal Bible reading and, characteristically, resist the imposition of religious authorities or church tradition.
But our reliance on supposedly neutral and objective tools for interpreting the Bible (from printed concordances to computers), which we often use in isolation, can overshadow the work of the Holy Spirit, the guidance of our communities and the wisdom of tradition.
This habit of treating the Bible as a list of facts gives us the illusion of objectivity – of interpretation free from bias or theological tradition. But it’s an illusion. Even concordances and cross-references are accompanied by theological judgments.
Pear Remarks an important example: the “curse of Ham” which justifies slavery. The strange story of Noah’s nakedness and his son’s curse in Genesis 9 took on particular significance in the antebellum South. Concordances and cross-references in Study Bibles would associate this passage with 1 Kings 9:20-21 and Joshua 9:23 to articulate the curse as continuing into the modern era, thus strengthening the association between the Canaanite tribes and Africans.
The seemingly neutral practice of presenting the text with cross-references reinforced a theology of enslavement based on racial prejudice. The choice to associate certain verses with others is always a theological judgment.
As we consider appropriate ways to use new technologies for biblical interpretation, we must examine not only the technology we use, but also the desires we bring to the text.
Are we turning to technological tools to avoid the difficult work of turning to our communities for help in understanding difficult passages? Do we seek a seemingly objective way to interpret the Bible while neglecting to reflect on the gifts of Christian tradition and theology to guide our interpretations? Are we replacing prolonged study of the entire Bible with quick excerpts that bring together isolated verses?
One of the participants in Dyer’s study spoke about returning to print resources after using digital tools and his frustration when he looked for “comments or clarifications on certain words out of habit, and they weren’t found.” not here “. We turn to AI tools for our Bible questions out of a desire to understand God’s Word, but our use of such tools often trains us to expect easy, immediately accessible answers to questions that might require more work. longer, more complex and more collaborative. Our desire for objectivity is often a desire to free ourselves from the constraints of community.
Could it be that we like asking ChatGPT questions about the Bible because no relationship is required? With AI, there is no accountability if our interpretation requires something we are not willing to sacrifice, and there is no challenge in managing disagreements and differences in interpretation. When it comes to reading Scripture, AI tools don’t guarantee that we will bypass the gift of God’s Spirit-indwelling family, but they can make this task easier.
A certain perspective or tradition always informs our reading, whether it is a 19th-century Bible editor, a Rapture novel author, or a computer program developer. There is no avoiding the reality that God has revealed Himself in the form of stories, letters, prophecies, and poems that cannot be reduced to data. And it is undeniable that we, limited and fallen creatures, need guidance to rightly hear the Word of God.
Rather than seeking a way to interpret the Bible without guidance, we should choose that direction wisely, looking to the wisdom of Christians around the world and throughout history, as well as those who gather with us every week to hear the Word of the Lord.
Jesus himself noted that we can apply all the right tools but still not understand the whole story: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you believe that in them you have eternal life,” he told the Jewish leaders. . “These are the same Scriptures that testify of me, and yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).
We too can ask ChatGPT all the right questions, apply all the right digital tools, and still miss the big picture of the Gospel – a radical and compelling message that has been preserved and passed down through the generations of God’s people .
We must carefully and faithfully consider the benefits and challenges of using AI tools to read and interpret the Bible. But if we fail to ask ourselves why we want AI to answer our Bible questions, we will continue to indiscriminately repeat our same bad reading habits – with or without AI’s help.
Kaitlyn Schiess is the author of The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go From Here. Speaking Out is Christianity Today’s guest opinion column.
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