Tech Meets Scripture: The Future of Bible Engagement!

0:00 I feel it coming in the air Air that brings from everywhere Only thing that's on my mind Tools around this county like We are, yeah I say that we are This is foundation, pleasure we need you Air, air, air We're gonna run this town We're gonna run this town We're gonna run this town, town The Bible is coming alive in ways that you probably weren't expecting.

0:43 Yes, as you read it, the Bible comes alive in your imagination and as you read these stories, it is amazing but I am talking today with Austin Marshall who is using artificial intelligence to animate and illustrate things in the Bible and he has an amazing project called the AI Bible and I've seen his Instagram feed which is incredible that he has some amazing visualizations of some of our best love stories from the Bible and so Austin, welcome to Charisma News. Hey, thanks for having me. So yes, I have seen your Instagram page and that caught my attention as it probably has done probably millions of people already because you are taking some of these best known stories and you're running it through some sort of an AI model and coming up with amazing images that are just fascinating and it's drawing me in quite a bit.

1:42 Tell me about your faith journey and why you decided to put Bible prompts into an AI generator. Yes, so I've been a Christian for a long time now. I mean, I kind of grew up in the church so it's one of those stories where you accepted, prayed the prayer at VBS kind of thing and then we grew up in the church and I've kind of been in and out with my faith but I'm all in now. I'm a family man now. I have a wife and kids and so we're all learning and growing together obviously. My interest in visualization of the Bible kind of got started when I read Ezekiel 1. That's a great place for this, man. I was just reading Ezekiel with my wife and man, I'm like, somebody needs to animate this. Somebody needs to illustrate this.

2:28 So there is actually one really interesting, like a really amazing video of an animation of Ezekiel 1 that came out recently but when I first read that, there was no artwork of it. I mean, there wasn't any good artwork of it, I would say. That's like up to modern standards, whatever you would consider that but I just was looking at a lot of the artwork of the Bible and I was like, there's so much stuff in this book that can be visualized in really cool ways and there's just not a lot of really great artwork for it. And I think the reason for that is just because it's expensive, right? There's a lot of really great illustrated Bibles out there but they're expensive to produce. I get why some of the people don't want to tackle because it's not like making an illustrated book that you write where you can sort of dictate how many images it needs.

3:15 There's so much imagery that needs to be presented in the Bible in a clear way. And so when I saw the AI technology for the first time, we tried doing it with stuff from Revelations, like right off the bat. And I was just like, okay, this is crazy. We just kind of copy and pasted verses at first to see what it would do. And I was like, I think with a little bit of tweaking, we can sort of make this consistently kind of showcasing actually what is actually being presented in the Bible and what it's talking about. And so we're doing our best. We're creating an app right now. Everything that I am making currently is all going up on the Instagram but we're creating separate stuff for an app. We're going to have a fully illustrated Bible reader just like, you know, U-version or whatever Bible app you use right now.

3:59 And it'll have images inside. We're going to have motion graphics. We're going to have videos in there. And it's all able to be mass produced because of this AI stuff. You know, I could not make any of these images on my own. I couldn't just open up an iPad or, you know, get out a pen and paper and draw these. The AI helps me be able to do that. And it takes some creativity and a little bit of tweaking and stuff like that. But with this technology, yeah, we're able to mass produce images, videos, all kinds of stuff. We're doing it as best as we can to make it accurate. But everyone has different interpretations and the AI can't always get exactly right. People's skin colors and hairstyles and clothing and the backgrounds are not always going to be exactly right. So we always tell people this is a supplement for scripture, not a substitute to scripture.

4:42 And so we encourage people, hey, go read the Bible. If this gets you interested in the Bible, that's the goal. We love that people are coming to our page and seeing the images and saying, I didn't know that there was a dragon in the Bible. I didn't know there was a huge pillar of fire in the Bible. And then they're going to their Bible and actually reading the stories, which is amazing. So Ezekiel chapter one with the wheel within a wheel type stuff that that definitely drew your attention. Then you went right to the Book of Revelation with the AI stuff. What you decided to to start posting these, you know, why did it go from you being just Austin being curious to, hey, let me post this and really start something here.

5:25 Like, tell me about that process. Yeah. So when I first started using it the first day that I even saw the AIR generator, which is like back at the beginning of this year, immediately I went to a guy that I know who has published a lot of books like that. They're literally the next day. I was like, OK, let's try to make a book. Let's try to make an illustrated Bible like an actual physical book, which is something we still want to do. But that was my first idea. And then I talked about it more with him. There's a lot of roadblocks and stuff that we have to get through. And I was like, let me just make an Instagram. Sorry, there's a chicken outside. That's right. Right now. But as I said, you know, let's just go make an Instagram. Let's put some stuff online and see if people are even interested in this at all before we just release a book and a bunch of money printing and all that stuff.

6:11 And so I started the Instagram. It didn't really take off at first until I started making the videos. I was kind of like trying to figure out, OK, how can I get this out there? I had a little bit of history in social media marketing and stuff like that. And I knew that short form videos were going to be the way. But I was like, I don't know how to how to make there wasn't any video generators at the time. So I was like, how do I make these into videos? And so I started animating them myself. All of my like original, I'd say probably 90 percent of the videos that I have on there are like I personally animated them. I created the image and I went in there and I did all the animation in like an After Effects type program. And so, yeah, so we did that. And then I started posting all of those. And that's kind of when the page went off. And so I looked into a video generators.

6:53 And now a lot of the stuff I do is actually with an video generator, too. So I'm combining a lot of different tools and a lot of different things to try to make these images the way that they are. And then, yeah, from there, we just decided let's make an app because people are already on their phones looking at this stuff. Let's try to make an app. And then one day if we can make the book and actually have an illustrated physical Bible and maybe just like a coffee table reader book type thing that people want to buy or show to other people or give to their nieces and nephews, sons and daughters, people that they want to get into the Bible, but they're just not interested because they think it's like boring or whatever to show them it's truly not boring. We'd love to have that physical book one day. But we started Instagram for that reason.

7:35 So I totally believe in the vision that you have with getting these AI generated images with the Bible. I was recently at an outreach where we were celebrating a kid's birthday, this young boy, and he grew up in a home that's not very they don't have a lot of money. And so we were at our church. We were throwing a birthday party for him. And so one of the main gifts that he got was the Action Bible, which is basically a graphic novelization of the Bible. So for those of us that don't don't really speak that language, it's a comic book of the Bible, but with, you know, like, like Spider-Man, like superhero stuff, not like not like humor.

8:17 And out of all the gifts that that boy received that day, he was most excited about this Bible. And it was because of the work put in the art of this. And he just loved this. And so he started reading it right away. I mean, he had other toys there, but there was the word of God through this visual this visualization that really started to impact his life. And I believe that it will continue to do that. So what you're doing, Austin, is really going to do this on another scale, which is really cool. And so I want to hear from you. What are some of your favorite images that you've that you've created? Some things that have kind of wowed you. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that as I create images, I sort of it's sort of like snowball effects where I think of a story that I want to do.

9:05 And then I try to explain that to the AI, sort of like explain it to the AI and have it spit back an image out at me. And then it gives me something slightly different. I'm like, oh, that's a cool new perspective. And it kind of goes back and forth until I come to this final area. So like for the Pillar of Fire, for example, a lot of people have in their minds, they think of this like small little like thing following around. And I ended up with a big giant fire tornado. I don't know if that's actually how it looked. Right. Like I was I wasn't there. I wasn't there either. So, but and so, you know, there's no way for it to be 100 percent accurate. But in my head, after I started messing with the AI, I imagined it to be this giant tornado of fire. So I was like, that sounds really cool. And it sounds like something that God would do because it's awesome.

9:48 So stuff like that, I think is really cool. So I love the Pillar of Fire. I've tried really hard to get the the stuff from Ezekiel, like the wheel within a wheel with the eyeballs. It's very difficult, but I really love those. Let's see. I really like like Elijah going up in the whirlwind, stuff like that. I don't know, man. There's a lot of stuff. I don't know if I really have any like particular favorites. I think every time I make a new video or or look into a new story and try to visualize it, it becomes my new favorite until the next one. Yeah. Just because I think there's so much cool visualization in the Bible that I think people don't really understand. And I don't even understand until I really look into it and I create the images and I think, wow, that's actually cool to think about what that might have looked like.

10:32 And so here's something that that I want to ask you, because I know that for somebody that is going to teach a child about the Bible, you or about any topic, really. But it's specifically about the Bible. You have to explain it in such a way that, number one, they need they they can understand it. But you pretty much end up learning it in a deeper way as you're teaching it. And A.I. is not a child, but in a lot of ways you have to train it to give it what you to give to have it give you what you want in return. How have you how has your understanding of the Bible and having to explain it to A.I.

11:13 How has that developed your own faith? Yeah, it's I mean, it really has developed my faith in a lot of different ways. I would say understanding the full story of scripture, like from especially the Old Testament, there's a really long narrative there that I think a lot of people don't really connect because they don't think about it. You know, I don't know. I it's kind of weird to say after the fact, but you just think about like, oh, it's just a bunch of random stories. And and that's how I thought about it. I feel like even just a couple of years ago. But then as I started getting into the Bible more reading it and then especially with this project, I was like, this is all connected in a way that is like amazing to see. And it's developed my faith because I'm seeing how God laid out this story for all of us. We're still part of this story.

11:58 Right. But he laid out the story in the Bible that is connected from Adam all the way to the very end in Revelation and visualizing all of the characters and trying. They're not like consistent characters because that's just how the AI works. But visualizing all these characters and trying to go through all of these stories and seeing like, oh, yeah, this connected to that. And that guy was in the story. And it's just amazing to see the the the connection of the scripture and the cross references and and also I'm sure everyone's seen the image of like where all the cross references are in the Bible. And it's been really cool for me to see, like, as I'm illustrating stuff like, oh, yeah, that happened back in this book. And this is connected to that. And this is David's talking about this right here. And Paul's talking about this back in the Old Testament.

12:41 And yeah, so it's been crazy to see the connection of scripture and how it's all one story. That is really cool. I'm sure that that has helped you in so many ways. And I look forward to seeing more of the stuff that you're producing. And I haven't seen this yet, but are you planning on doing Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones? Yeah, I did do. I think I did still images of it. OK, well, I'm trying to figure out. I was thinking I would do that one on Halloween. Oh, OK. Why not skeletons? And there's, you know, some people like Halloween, some people don't. So I'll do right. Hopefully, hopefully that one goes viral for you because of the connection to Halloween.

13:22 But then people find the truth of the gospel in that as well. Yeah, Austin, what what type of feedback have you been getting from people that have been seeing these images and these videos? Yeah, so, I mean, mostly positive. Obviously, we have a lot of followers and a lot of people like our stuff. And I think that most people do understand the reality that like, hey, this this isn't like I said, it's not a substitute for scripture. It's a supplement to scripture. It's meant to help you understand the Bible and help you get into it. But I've been getting some people that are like don't like A.I. are, you know, they think it takes away creativity from the artist. But the response I would have to that is that number one, this is happening anyway. Right.

14:03 It's happening whether we like it or not. So I would rather use the technology for something good rather than all the people that are going to and are already using it for evil. And then number two, this I would not be able to do this without A.I. Art, right. I would not be able to illustrate the entire Bible without the A.I. Art generators. I'd probably be four or five images into it by now. And I've already created over 10000 images at the current point that I'm at this year. So it's probably closer to with my team that I'm working with, probably closer to 15000 because they've they've done a lot to. So, yeah, I mean, this technology is is amazing in a lot of ways. It's scary in some ways, but I know that we would not be able to do this without the A.I. Art technology.

14:47 And so some people are scared of A.I. Some people don't want to get into it. But a lot of people, I think, see the positive impact that it's going to have in if it's used correctly. It's like any tool. Right. You know, a hand can be used to build a house and a hammer can be used to break someone's arm. But you use it for the good things and it ends up being a great tool. So, yeah, definitely. Well, Austin, I really am looking forward to seeing more of the A.I. Bible. But I want to give you the opportunity to just tell people how they can find out more about your the A.I. Bible. And I know you talked about this app. How can people partner with you with that? Yeah, totally. So all of our stuff is on we have Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube.

15:31 I don't want any of those platforms. Instagram is where I post the most stuff because obviously I can do still images and the videos. I post all of the videos to Tiktok and YouTube, too, though, if you're interested in that. It's just the A.I. Bible official on all three of those. And then, yeah, if you guys want to get involved with the app, I may do a second round on Kickstarter. We did launch with a Kickstarter at the beginning of or I guess the middle of this year. And that went on for about two months and we had probably fifty two thousand dollars from that. And we had a lot of backers and a lot of people that really believed in it, which was amazing to see. And so I may go back and do a second round for people that want to get involved before we launch. We're looking to launch in December.

16:13 But I'd say if you follow the Instagram or any of those other pages, I'm sure I'll update on the other pages, too. But the Instagram is the main the main thing where I'm going to be posting on my story and posting updates on the app and, you know, giving you guys progress of like when we're going to launch and eventually we're going to have a website that will sort of be like a landing page where people can kind of see the progress and see when the app is going to come out. It'll be available on Android and iOS. So no matter what kind of smartphone you have, it should be available for you. And then, yeah, just follow us on Instagram. The main thing I would say is keep up to date by just checking the stories on there. That is really cool. And I definitely recommend that. That's how I found Austin is through the A.I. Bible official on Instagram.

16:54 It's it's always encouraging to see some of the stuff that they're he and his team now are coming up with. And I just want to say, Austin, thank you for using A.I. technology for the glory of God to draw people closer to him. A lot of times people are afraid of artificial intelligence because of the potential. But as you said, you're using it as a hammer to build a house, not a hammer to be a weapon to break a leg or something like that. So thank you for using A.I. for the kingdom of God. Yeah, totally. Of course, it's all God. I mean, he I think he kind of gave me the idea to do this. I'm just sort of trying to do what he wants me to do. And I think, like you said, you know, A.I. is a tool.

17:36 We can use it for good or bad. So we're just trying to use it for good. Amen. Yeah. Austin Marshall, thank you so much for joining us here on Charisma News. Yeah, thanks so much, Sean.