In the beginning
It's quite hard to know what to say in the beginning.
If all goes to plan, I'll be summarising the Bible for the next three-and-a-half years: one tweet per chapter, one chapter per day. That's an intimidating amount of time to commit to doing something pretty much every day! But here we go...
I'll keep within Twitter's 140 character limit (including an abbreviated chapter reference at the beginning e.g. "Gen1:"), and try to convey a summary of each chapter in something like the style of the chapter itself.
Will I really be able to do justice to all 176 verses of Psalm 119 in 140 characters? Probably not. But the challenge of being so brief will force me to engage with the text and understand the key themes. And that's partly the point in the first place - I want to be an active rather than a passive reader of Scripture!
The Twitter account is @biblesummary, and I've built this website to keep track of my progress. I'm only going to post chapter summaries at the Twitter account - no commentary or replies - but I'll be reflecting on the project here.
The commenting system for this site has the option to synch with your own Twitter account, so get involved! Maybe you could read along with me and post your own summary as a comment to each chapter...?
Will I even make it to Exodus? Stay tuned and we'll find out...
Comments
9 Aug 2010, 17:26
@biblesummary This looks like an awesome project, and an interesting use of Twitter. Will be behind you to keep it up!
Thanks @digitalfprint! I'm excited to see that commenting-to-Twitter actually works in real life!
I'm already regretting my no-replies policy, but finishing with an account of exactly 1189 chapter summaries will hopefully be worth it!
I found out about this fasinating thing as I was schmoosing over THE AUSTRALIAN online today. I think there is high appeal in this concept for a lot of my Christian friends, and me.
14 Aug 2010, 02:08
@biblesummary Dear Brother in God I really enjoyed your job. Keep going! Many prays will include your summaries. Thanks a lot. God bless u!
I think you're right to stick to the 'no replies' policy, as people can comment on here - and it keeps it PURE! As you already have, you can reply from @chrisjuby!
I like this idea. I'm not Christian but I have read The Bible. Be interesting to go over it again, it's a crazy book!
Best,
NM
Thanks for the comments everyone!
I'll fix the issue with slashes when I'm back at my computer tomorrow.
Am glad I found you when you just started out. Great project! In Christ you can do it!
I would love to know, What inspired you to do this? I wish you the best of luck with this journey. I see where you mentioned you were regretting your "No replies policy" Just some advice you could create another twitter account just to answer questions, An post different other things.
14 Aug 2010, 22:31
@biblesummary All the best with this project, looks like you already have the world's media lending a helping hand!
@biblesummary Of course you could use http://twitlonger.com to help with the character limit. It would allow you to go over the 140 character limit if need be.
Comecei em 4/7/2010 twittando PROVÉRBIOS (link/cada texto) http://www.davikr.org/content/prov%C3%A9rbios-de-salom%C3%A3o
Outstanding work. Thank you. Every church website should link to this.
What's amazing to me is that you just started this less than a month ago and already you've reached world wide! Sea to Sea! Keep up the awesome work
What is inspiring you?
I summarised all 1,189 chapters of the Bible on Twitter - one tweet per chapter, one chapter per day for over three years.
Find out about the project here, you can buy the Bible Summary book on Kindle or in paperback, and feel free to get in contact if you have any comments or questions.
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