Time for a word cloud quiz!

We have already read through three major books of the Bible (plus many Psalms and Proverbs) and it’s always exciting to see how incredibly diverse the books of the Bible are, yet together they show us the big story of God with us. One way of visualizing the unique character of a book of the Bible is a “word cloud”: feed all the words from the book into a computer and then let it show the most common words in a graphic way.

So, here is a little quiz: Below are the word clouds for Genesis, Exodus, Matthew and Mark. Click on one to enlarge it and then try to guess which is which (no prizes for guessing which is Old or New Testament), then click on the link  below to find the answer (and lots more of these word clouds). Got them all right? Check the answers out here…

[Hints: key words to distinguish Genesis and Exodus (apart from the many biblical characters) are the relative weights of the words used for God - LORD is God's "proper name" YHWH (Yahweh, Jehovah) revealed to...? Matthew or Mark? Only one of them uses the distinctive phrase "kingdom of heaven"...]

By the way, if you want to create your own word cloud from a document or a talk you have given, go to Wordle – endless fun!