It is difficult to overemphasize the value of strong book overviews when we study the Bible. If we don’t know what the book is about, we’ll have trouble discovering what a chapter within that book is about. That’s why I was delighted to recommend overviewbible.org to you a few weeks ago. Jeffrey Kranz has done some terrific work in writing solid book overviews and making them visually appealing.
I recently discovered a similar resource, which overviews books of the Bible in a short video format. The guys at The Bible Project are doing a bang-up job at creating high quality, textually-sensitive videos that overview each book of the Bible. They’re also making videos explaining various topics and concepts in the Bible, but I’m sure you can understand I’m more interested in the book overviews.
These videos are sensitive to the text. They explain each book according to the literary structure and themes of the book, and not by stringing together random but memorable stories.
These videos are fascinating. I’m no graphic artist, but I’m often repelled by low quality Christian productions. The production level on these videos rises well above the crowd.
These videos are short. They pack a lot of material into 5 or 6 minutes without cheating or cheapening the subject.
These videos are free. As they complete each video, the creators post it on YouTube for wide consumption.
I can’t wait to show these first few videos to my children. The next time I lead a study on Genesis or Exodus, we’ll make sure to watch these videos to kick things off (after the usual assignment of reading the book 4 or 5 times to develop our own overview).
So far, they’ve completed 2 videos on Genesis and 2 videos on Exodus, and they’re looking for help with the rest of the project. This appears to be a project well worth supporting.
HT: Andy Cimbala
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