A Simplified Testament

In Genesis 1:4, we see God regarding his creation of light. The light was good, so there’s not a lot more to say…or is there?

This verse goes right along with 1:3 in recognizability. In the top half of the pictogram we see God looking at the illumination he had created. A simple upturn of the mouth, previously a straight line, communicates that God is pleased with what he has created.

We again employed the “+” sign to show that the first part of the pictogram is related to the second. God moves to separate his creation from the darkness. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like if light and darkness were not separate. We struggled to depict the change because we were unable to imagine what the previous state would have looked like. Hopefully, we’ve done this momentous event justice.

Darkness here is represented by the same square of black that was previously used to represent the darkness up the deep. We still think that this darkness isn’t just the absence of light, but a prototypical darkness that preexisted the creation of light. Maybe this “darkness” isn’t even what we experience on a regular basis?

The Light Was Good, and Our Webpage Got Better!

On a technical note, we’ve also upgraded the widget we’re using to display the verses. This seems to be working better with the WordPress template we are using, and is very attractive. While this is a big improvement over where we started, we are hopeful to continue to improve this website.

In the meantime, you could take a look at the whole IKEABIBLE, or check out some of our other blog articles. Or, maybe take a look at Patheos? Either way, take care, and we’ll be back with more soon!

“Let there be light” must be one of the most famous quotes from the Bible. It’s really exciting for us to have reached what may be our first major milestone in the IKB. We hope you are looking forward to seeing your favorite bible quote IKB style.

In this verse, we see the return of the pictogram for God. He speaks, saying that famous quote. The utterance is show here as a text bubble, which we think is relatively universally understood among humans.

We see the starburst pictogram (divine creation) combined with a new addition. The lightbulb pictogram indicates light. The contents of the utterance is then repeated, and a “+” sign is used to indicate that this is not mere juxtaposition, but that the act and the occurrence are connected.

We are also thinking of creating a pictogram glossary. We hope that our IKB verses are readily understandable. That said, it may be helpful for uses to be able to look up the intended meanings of each image.

We are also still exploring how to best present the IKB on this website. We’d like to be able to present multiple translations, and not just the New International Version (NIV) as we currently do. It’s important to us that the quality of the presentation matches the quality of the content we provide. Let us know your thoughts in a comment, or tweet at us!

Let There Be Light, and Another Post!

We’ll be back with more soon. Until then, take care!

In the meantime, you could take a look at the whole IKEABIBLE, or check out some of our other blog articles. Or, maybe take a look at Patheos? Either way, take care, and we’ll be back with more soon!

Genesis 1:2, IKB style is here! We have to admit this one was a bit trickier than the last one. As a result, we had to introduce several new pictograms, and a style element to help separate thoughts.

The first block above corresponds to the first sentence of the verse. We see the pictogram for “the earth”. “The earth” is linked by an arrow to two new pictograms. The first represents formlessness, the second, emptiness. Again, we see the “+” linking two pictograms that are explicitly related in the text.

The second block gets even more complicated. We struggled to represent, “darkness was on the surface of the deep.” Part of the challenge here is that it’s a little difficult to determine what “the deep” is in particular. As a result. the first pictogram here is less explicitly literal than we would like to be. We show the side view of a chasm in darkness.

This first section is again linked to the second pictogram by “+”. We see a transparent version of the “God” pictogram. The transparency indicates that this is the spirit of God. The pictogram shows the spirit directly above three wavy lines, representing “the waters”. It is likely that we will use a different pictogram to represent geographical bodies of water.

Genesis 1:2 is Under Our Belt!

That means 1:3 is next! We hope to be back with the next verse soon!

In the meantime, you could take a look at the whole IKEABIBLE, or check out some of our other blog articles. Or, maybe take a look at Patheos? Either way, take care, and we’ll be back with more soon!

The first true page of the IKEABIBLE (IKB), simplified Genesis 1:1 has arrived! Here we get our first look at how we represent god. The top half of the pictogram shows a human form, while the lower half of the form is a cloud. This indicates the being’s heavenly origin.

This verse depicts god in the act of creation. A starburst represents the objects it contains as being created from nothingness. Again, a cloud is used to represent the heavens. Three straight lines arranged together represents the earth. There is a “plus” symbol in between them. This indicates that no only are the created in juxtaposition, but their creation is linked.

As we mentioned previously, these pictograms will become the basis of the vocabular for the rest of the testament. We are hopeful that the pictogram we created for God will be conserved across the entire document. The same could be true for the “heaven” and “earth” pictograms as well. A starburst always represents the concept of creation. However, this will only be true where the creation is of divine origin. A different symbol represents creation by humans.

We made the decision starting with the first verse to only depict one verse per page. This is in order to help keep the pictograms from becoming to cluttered. Giving each verse a single page would be prohibitive in a print edition. Fortunaely, this works great in a digital format! We would love to eventually see the IKB in a print format. For now though, the internet is a great tool for disseminating the good word!

Simplified Genesis 1:2 is next!

In the meantime, you could take a look at the whole IKEABIBLE, or check out some of our other blog articles. Or, maybe take a look at Patheos? Either way, take care, and we’ll be back with more soon!

We welcome you to IKEABIBLE, the simplified testament. The manuals IKEA makes to help people build there furniture inspired us. Particularly it’s the clarity and simplicity with which they express complex ideas. It occurred to us that it would be great if the Bible could be expressed in the same way, and IKEABIBLE was born.

There’s not a whole lot to say about the first page, but we’re still proud of our work and wanted to go ahead and announce it on the blog. We hope that it sets the tone for the rest that is to come. Represented here is a simple book with a ribbon bookmark. Lines represent the text of the book, but no particular language is visible. This helps indicate that IKEABIBLE is open to all who seek it’s knowledge, regardless of what language the speak. Regardless even of whether or not the viewer is literate.

The Future of the Simplified Testament

The plan so far is to work through the bible in order, starting with Genesis and ending with revelation. The work will likely start out slow and then speed up. This will be due to the development a library of pictograms. Also we will create vocabulary for expressing the content of the bible. I expect that we may be slowed a little as we transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament. This is because of the change of focus from one testament to the next.

Thank you for your interest in our work! We hope you’ll be back soon to see the upcoming pages! We’ll be back to you with more as soon as possible! Until then, take care!

Take a look at the whole IKEABIBLE, or check out some of our other blog articles. Or, maybe take a look at Patheos?