The Brick Testament

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The Brick Testament is a project created by Brendan Powell Smith in which Bible stories are illustrated using still photographs of dioramas constructed entirely out of Lego bricks. The project began as a website in October 2001 that featured six stories from the book of Genesis. The popularity of the website has also spawned a Brick Testament book series.

Aside from its ambitious scope and its use of Lego as an art medium, what also sets the project apart from other illustrated versions of the Bible is its adherence to scripture. All stories are retold using passages from the Bible, with chapter and verse cited. To avoid copyright issues, Smith has updated most of the stories with his own wording which is based on a number of public domain Bible translations. Where characters are portrayed as saying or thinking words that are not direct quotes from the Bible, such text is displayed in gray instead of the usual black.

The website and book series have become popular both among some religious believers who appreciate its whimsicality and among non-Christians who view The Brick Testament' as pointing out what they consider to be absurdities in the Bible.

Contents 1 Purpose 2 Techniques 3 Website 4 Books 4.1 Stories from the Book of Genesis 4.2 The Story of Christmas 4.3 The Ten Commandments 4.4 Das 1. Buch L. 4.5 Japanese translation 4.6 Korean translation 5 External links 5.1 General 5.2 News articles

[edit] Purpose

Smith's stated purpose in creating The Brick Testament is to increase people's knowledge of the Bible, whether they are believers or not. A graduate of Boston University with a degree in Philosophy & Religion, Smith says he first read the Bible in its entirety in college, and came away from it amazed at how little of it most people are familiar with, regardless of their level of religious devotion.

[edit] Techniques

The dioramas seen in The Brick Testament are created at home using Smith's personal Lego collection. He generally does not alter the Lego bricks themselves, but picks and chooses pieces from hundreds of Lego sets dating from the 1960s to the present, and recombines them to create the various Biblical scenes.

In the few instances where alterations are made to Lego elements, they are generally simple changes made with a hobby knife or permanent ink marker. One notable instance of such alteration is God's hair. Since the Lego Group has never released a white hair piece for their minifigures (except for an inappropriate pigtails piece in 1975), Smith made God's white hair by carving a white helmet piece. The only completely non-Lego part of Smith's scenes is the background sky, which is generally a piece of posterboard with blue sky printed on it.

All of Smith's images are digital. Smith photographed early scenes with a Nikon Coolpix 950. He currently uses a Nikon Coolpix 4500. After photographing the scenes, he adds speech balloons and sometimes makes alterations using image editing programs such as Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop.

[edit] Website

The Brick Testament website began in October 2001. It originally featured six stories from the book of Genesis. The site now contains nearly 200 illustrated stories from both the Old and New Testaments. It had an Alexa traffic rank of 44,701 in August 2005.

Each story is tagged if it contains nudity, sexual content, violence and/or cursing.

The website features official Brick Testament merchandise, including the "Moses & the Ten Commandments" and "The Holy Trinity" custom sets.

The Brick Testament website

[edit] Books

Currently, seven hardcover Brick Testament books have been published.

[edit] Stories from the Book of Genesis

The Brick Testament: Stories from the Book of Genesis (ISBN 1-931686-45-9) was the first Brick Testament book in print. It features more than 175 photographs and was published by Quirk Books in 2003. It contains the following stories:

1. The Garden of Eden
2. Cain and Abel
3. The Flood
4. Noah's Insobriety
5. The Tower of Babel
6. Sodom and Gomorrah
7. God Tests Abraham
8. Jacob and His Cousins
9. Jacob Wrestles God
10. Joseph Is Ambushed

[edit] The Story of Christmas

The Brick Testament: The Story of Christmas (ISBN 1-59474-012-7). It is 175 pages and contains quotations from Matthew and Luke. It was published by Quirk Books in 2004.

[edit] The Ten Commandments

The Brick Testament: The Ten Commandments (ISBN 1-59474-044-5). It was published by Quirk Books in 2005. It contains the following stories:

1. Moses Is Born
2. Moses Commits Murder
3. Moses Marries a Midianite
4. The Burning Bush
5. The Staff of Aaron
6. The Ten Plagues
7. The Parting of the Red Sea
8. The Ten Commandments
9. The Golden Calf
10. The Ark of the Covenant

[edit] Das 1. Buch L.

Das 1. Buch L. (ISBN 3-7254-1336-3) is the German language version of The Brick Testament: Stories from the Book of Genesis. It was published by Sanssouci in 2004.

[edit] Japanese translation

レゴで遊ぶ天地創造ものがたり (ISBN 4-576-04235-1) is the Japanese language version of The Brick Testament: Stories from the Book of Genesis. It was published by Futami (二見書房) in 2004.

[edit] Korean translation

레고로 만나는 창세기: 하나님 처음 지으신 세상 (ISBN 89-91290-10-8) is the Korean language version The Brick Testament: Stories from the Book of Genesis. 레고로 만나는 예수 탄생: 크리스마스 이야기 (ISBN 89-91290-11-6) is the Korean language version of The Brick Testament: The Story of Christmas.

[edit] External links

[edit] General

• The Brick Testament
• The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith
• Alexa.com statistics

[edit] News articles

• Challender, Mary. "Lego toys convert to Bible stories", Des Moines Register, 2005-03-24.
• Rubin, Daniel. ""In the beginning" was a snap.", Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 December 2003.
• Vo, Kim. "The Bible, brick by brick: Genesis stories illustrated in Legos", San Jose Mercury News, 2003-11-22.