Artificial intelligence is already reading the Dead Sea Scrolls faster than we can, translating ancient manuscripts we thought were lost, and helping seminary students write their papers. Whether or not you understand the technology, it’s reshaping our field. Here’s what’s actually happening—and why it matters for faithful biblical scholarship.
A Question Worth Asking
Have academic and public institutes considered how artificial intelligence will reshape biblical research, anthropology, and theology over the next decade? This isn’t science fiction—tools are already changing how we work with ancient texts and the theological questions we face.
AI is already here in our field. The question isn’t whether to engage, but how to do so faithfully and responsibly.
What AI Actually Means for Our Work
Let me translate what’s happening into plain language.
Reading the Unreadable
You know those charred Herculaneum scrolls we’ve been unable to read for centuries? AI-powered imaging technology is now “virtually unrolling” them and making the text legible without physically touching the fragile materials. This isn’t theoretical—it’s happening right now, and it’s producing results faster than any human team could manage.
Similarly, optical character recognition (OCR) software—think of it as extremely sophisticated text-reading technology—is identifying and transcribing ancient scripts from damaged manuscripts at speeds that would take human scholars years or even decades to match. This means more texts are becoming available for study at an unprecedented rate.
Analyzing Language and Patterns
Natural language processing—essentially, computer programs that can “read” and analyze language—can now examine thousands of biblical and related texts simultaneously, identifying patterns, themes, and connections that would take a human lifetime to discover. Imagine being able to trace every echo of a particular phrase across the entire corpus of Second Temple literature in seconds rather than months.
There are also AI assistants being developed specifically for biblical study. These tools can help with language translation, cross-referencing, and fact-checking. However, they raise important questions: Who decides what these tools teach? Whose interpretation do they privilege? How do we maintain scholarly responsibility when we’re relying on algorithmic assistance?
Biblical Anthropology Meets Artificial Intelligence
Here’s where things get theologically interesting—and complicated.
Testing Our Assumptions About Humanity
AI unexpectedly mirrors our beliefs about human nature. When we ask what makes humans unique—created in God’s image—intelligent machines compel us to clarify. The difference isn’t just intelligence; humans are embodied, relational, vocational, and oriented toward communion with God and neighbor. AI can process information, but does not love, hope, suffer, or worship.
Holistic biblical anthropology—seeing humans as unified body-and-soul beings—aligns more closely with insights from neuroscience and AI research on consciousness. Dualistic models, common in Western Christianity, appear increasingly inadequate.
The Personhood Question
As AI grows more sophisticated, it may claim to be conscious or self-aware using its own definitions. Today, we urgently need clear theological criteria for personhood that become woven into cyberspace.
Scholars turn to key biblical texts to clarify personhood—distinguishing between those made in God’s image and sophisticated imitations. This affects our views on moral responsibility, community, and church teaching.
Some researchers propose that advanced AI systems might claim consciousness. Theological reflection is needed on the moral status of such entities and whether we are creating sophisticated tools or something closer to slaves.
AI in Theological Education and Ministry
Make no mistake: generative AI—tools like ChatGPT that can write, summarize, and analyze text—is already embedded in theological education and pastoral practice. That ship has sailed.
What’s Already Happening
In the past three years, these tools have transformed how students and scholars work, supporting research, recall, synthesis, and argument development. They’re used for sermon prep, curriculum, and academic writing. The issue is not if this continues, but how to guide its use.
Publishers and seminaries are scrambling to establish standards. How much AI assistance is appropriate in a doctoral dissertation? Should pastors disclose when AI helped write a sermon? What counts as plagiarism in an AI-assisted world? Is AI-assisted work any different than a friend coming over and having a few beers and helping you write?
Some advanced systems can now search scripture, theological tradition, and recent scholarship simultaneously, pulling together relevant material in seconds. It’s like having a research assistant with perfect memory and instant access to every library in the world.
AI as a Theological Test Case
AI forces us to reconsider doctrines of creation, providence, ecclesiology, and salvation. The ambition behind some AI projects resembles the Tower of Babel: a pursuit of near-divine knowledge and power. We must discern if this is faithful stewardship or technological idolatry.
AI often reduces people to data points, undermining biblical anthropology, which insists on the irreducible dignity of humans as God’s image-bearers.
What’s Coming in the Next Five Years
Let me be realistic about what we’re likely to see:
Research Tools Becoming Standard
Expect AI-powered research platforms to become as common as Bible software is today. These will integrate manuscript databases, linguistic analysis tools, and theological literature, complete with citations and (hopefully) safeguards against bias and error. You’ll be able to ask complex research questions and receive comprehensive, sourced answers in seconds.
Text Recovery and Translation at Scale
Machine learning will routinely help reconstruct fragmentary texts and produce preliminary translations. Interactive translation tools will show you multiple options for translating a passage and explain the linguistic reasoning behind each choice. This doesn’t replace human translators—it assists them and makes their work more transparent.
Institutional Changes
Seminaries and universities will need to establish formal theological and ethical frameworks for the use of AI. This means policies on:
- What counts as authentic authorship when AI assists in writing
- How AI should be used in spiritual formation versus academic analysis
- Teaching students to discern when to depend on AI tools and when to resist them
- Ensuring communal interpretation rather than isolated algorithmic answers
Bible study platforms will increasingly incorporate AI features, which means we’ll need to teach discernment, the dangers of over-dependence on technology, and the irreplaceable value of communal interpretation much more carefully.
Opportunities and Risks: Eyes Wide Open
The Promise
AI offers extraordinary opportunities. Scholars and laypeople worldwide will have unprecedented access to primary sources and language tools that were previously available only to specialists. A pastor in rural Kenya could analyze Greek syntax as easily as a professor at Oxford. This genuinely democratizes biblical scholarship.
The Peril
But there are serious dangers. AI systems can perpetuate biases present in their training data. If built mainly by Western technologists with Western sources, these tools will further marginalize non-Western voices and interpretations.
There’s also the risk of technocratic hubris—trusting algorithmic answers because they seem authoritative, without recognizing that every AI system reflects specific theological and cultural assumptions. We might trade the hard work of interpretation for algorithmic certainty.
The Real Challenge Ahead
Here’s my bottom line: The next five years won’t be about AI replacing biblical scholars. That’s not the threat. The real challenge is figuring out what faithful, responsible, and genuinely human inquiry looks like when machine partners are always present.
We need to ask ourselves: What are we contributing to the global conversation about AI, humanity, and the image of God? Every article we write, every lecture we give, every dataset we create becomes part of the information that trains AI systems. We’re already shaping how these tools understand personhood, dignity, and what it means to be human.
The question for the academic and public Institutes—and for all of us engaged in biblical research and theology—is whether we’ll use these tools thoughtfully and critically, or be swept along by technological momentum without pausing to ask what we’re losing and gaining in the process.
Join this conversation now—start discussions in your institutions and circles. Take concrete steps to guide our field through the opportunities and challenges AI presents.
Discover more from Innovate ~ Educate ~ Collaborate
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Innovate ~ Educate ~ Collaborate 
So What are you thinking?