When I came across James B. Jordan’s lectures in the mid 2000s, including his series on Revelation, I realised that, for the first time, I was listening to somebody whose method of interpretation could actually make sense of all of the Bible.
After a few years of intense listening and learning, I thought that the best way to put the whole story together would be to write a book. This would show how one single pattern was the “DNA” of the Scriptures. The original title was “Deep River” with a subtitle about a cruise through the Bible, or something, but an academic friend wisely noted that most people would likely drown in a river this deep and fast-flowing.
After two years of writing and editing, the end result was just shy of 800 pages (and the only book I’ve published that has an actual index!). Since then, I have had a detailed “mind map” of the Bible that I can zoom in and out of in my head. Sadly, I tend to assume when I write that everyone has this facility. The basic structure was summarised in Bible Matrix, published a year later after another wise friend (Eric Rauch) said that a smaller book—a primer—might be a good idea. It’s helpful but very abbreviated and the writing is clunky (except for Peter Leithart’s foreword, of course). Then, for a seminar in 2014, I wrote a primer for the primer, Reading the Bible in 3D, which has helped a lot of people, but it was written in a big hurry, and it shows.
The thesis at the beginning, based on what I learned from Jordan, was that the sevenfold Creation pattern was a common literary device used in the Bible. He also described what he called the exodus pattern, in which Israel went through numerous instances of death and resurrection. Then there was also Ray Sutton’s fivefold covenant pattern. It seemed to me that in a “musical” sense, all of these patterns were actually the same pattern, but stamped into different materials.
Over the years since then, further analysis of the text has shown me that the structure is not “occasional” but “integral.” The principle that governed its construction is as tight as Leviathan’s scales, with not a single gap. This is a big deal, because it means that the text is so perfect in its construction that any meddling with it will be evident. In my own experience, when reading an English translation, I often pick up where the translator has reordered the Hebrew or Greek words or phrases for English readers because the pattern is out of whack. That is how perfect it is. It also means that, like DNA, the text of the Bible is, to some degree, “self-correcting.”
Describing how it all worked required the invention of some terminology, which seems to have lasted the distance. It seemed obvious to call the second and second-last steps Division and Conquest, and only a couple of years ago did it become clear that these related to God’s use of the well-known strategy, “divide and conquer”!
Even stranger is the fact that, although I rave on about the Bible being a fractal, it wasn’t until after Totus Christus was published that an online friend observed that this method showed how the Bible is a fractal. I had to Google the word. The concept of a pattern working at multiple levels was not something I had imposed upon the text but something I had observed in the text. I mention this to say “up your nose” to the naysayers who seem to lack the sense required to pick up the musical quality of the text, and tell me that I’m imagining things. I haven’t always gotten things right on the first go, but that extra familiarity and experience developed over many hundreds of hours through the years has improved things to a great degree. It is a lot like learning to surf—after a while, you can predict what the waves are going to do because you have ridden so many before and you know how they behave.
While later study has shown the original work to be a bit sloppy, it has also vindicated the thesis. A lot of the material has been revisited over the years and corrected or polished up, and there are also a lot of fresh things that can be included. So it is time to put it all together in one place, and not only show how wonderful is the groundbreaking work of James B. Jordan and Peter Leithart, but also to explain how the Bible fits together in its entirety—that is, why it is the way it is.
I receive quite a few requests from people looking to get a copy of the original, but it really needs some work done. So the plan is to rework it as four volumes, and since most of the spadework is already complete, but scattered, it’s a matter of careful assembly more than it is writing new material.
The main benefit of returning to it after a decade is that aforementioned experience and familiarity I now have with how the Bible uses the basic literary “algorithm” in various ways. But since the first book “tumbles out” (in the words of David Field, who suggested renaming one of the matrix steps), a four-volume set will also allow room to explain things at a more leisurely pace. It will also minimise the risk of falling asleep while reading in bed and dropping such a weighty tome on your head. The original edition was very heavy. Mind you, these four won’t be lightweights, either. But they will be more helpful, more correct, and also more beautiful in every way.
I have a couple of smaller books to finish before I start on this, but am really looking forward to it. I have a few generous sponsors on Patreon, but if you’d consider a monthly donation or even a special one for this project, it would certainly speed things up. And you’ll get an acknowledgment in the books as well.
Here’s the Patreon link, or you can donate via PayPal to mbull [at] bullartistry [dot] com [dot] au . And I promise to work very hard.
