problem definition

What can we learn from reading bible with machines? To explore this question, our team is building a text generation model that will take a short passage from bible as input and output a narrative commentary on the passage. We begin with the assumption that machines can be significant partners in reading corpora like bible by learning from existing commentary data and introducing novel reflections on a given passage. These machine generated reflections on bible passages can teach us about the existing tendencies in bible commentary and can introduce new questions and insights on the corpus.

So, our challenge is to build a machine learning based text generation model that contributes to the community of conversation reflecting on bible passages. In order to build this model, we will leverage some strategies already in development at ai.iliff, the AI Institute at Iliff School of Theology, to produce a conversational AI that can participate in online courses to facilitate better learning outcomes for students.

We believe the process of building, testing, and deploying this model can raise interesting and important questions about the theory and practice of bible interpretation in a technological era where machine learning will participate in expanding ways in our reading and research. Some such questions include:

• Does our theology of scripture change when we partner with machines in reading bible?
• What is the role of historical reflections on bible in our contemporary interpretive traditions and practices? In a sense, how do we use our data in our own interpretive practice?
• What constitutes the boundary between bible and our reading/intepretation of it?
• How does the digital materiality of bible, no longer constrained by the codex, change the ways we use and understand bible?
• How does reading and writing with machines impact our notions of authorship, creativity, and interpretive capacity?
• How might the machine’s processes of generating theological commentary (dependent on and derivative of the inherited tradition/corpus of theological discourse on which it trains) invite reflection on our own human processes of theological reflection and the generation of new theological ideas?

For the first iteration of this model, to demonstrate proof of concept, we will build a very simple interface that will allow a user to give the text of a biblical passage to the model and in return, the model will construct a response, word by word, that comments on the given passage. These machinic readings of bible will hopefully foster conversation among scholars and practitioners that will in turn help us develop more useful iterations of the model.