Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media

“Through a Bible Lens” by Prof. Mel Alexenberg draws on the Bible to discover imaginative ways for experiencing spirituality in our age of smartphone photography and social media. It explores digital culture and biblical thought based on his research and teaching at Columbia University, MIT, and universities in Israel. It speaks to Christians and Jews in the language of new media on how to create a lively dialogue between one’s emerging life story and the enduring biblical narrative.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

What's the Book About?

Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media is a highly acclaimed book by Prof. Mel Alexenberg that teaches how biblical insights can transform smartphone photography and social media into imaginative ways for seeing spirituality in everyday life.

It speaks to Jews and Christians who share an abiding love of the Bible by inspiring the creation of a lively dialogue between our emerging life stories and the enduring biblical narrative.

DRAWS ON THE BIBLE FOR DEVELOPING CREATIVITY IN A DIGITAL AGE

Through a Bible Lens draws on Dr. Alexenberg’s research on creative thinking at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies and biblical insights he formulated as professor at Israeli universities to teach imaginative ways for developing creativity in our age of smartphones and social media.

TEACHES HOW TO MAKE THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE A MIRROR FOR SEEING YOURSELF

Through a Bible Lens shows how to create a lively dialogue between your emerging life story and the enduring biblical narrative by Bible blogging your life. The blog is an ideal narrative form for developing fresh insights for revealing spiritual dimensions of your personal narrative.

SPEAKS TO MILLENNIALS IN TODAY'S LANGUAGE OF DIGITAL CULTURE

It presents to all generations the most up-to-date thoughts on how The Bible gives fresh insights on the impact of new technologies on contemporary life. Christians and Jews should buy THROUGH A BIBLE LENS for themselves as well as for their children and grandchildren.

OFFERS A BIBLE CURE FOR SMARTPHONE ADDICTION

Through a Bible Lens offers a spiritual cure for the serious problem of smartphone addiction by teaching how to shift focus from the screen to photographing your everyday life from biblical perspectives. It also shows how to delight in all that happens around you by turning off, tuning out and unplugging one day each week. Follow the "Bible Cure for Smartphone Addiction" blog.

A MUST-READ BEFORE VISITING THE HOLY LAND

It teaches how to transform your smartphone photographs into biblical messages emerging from what you see and share your experiences through social media. It's all in the book THROUGH A BIBLE LENS.

To see inside the book and buy click here Amazon

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Bible Blog Your Life by Turning the Biblical Narrative into a Mirror for Seeing Yourself

The chronological blog form invites the creation of a personal narrative, telling your story. A blog is a web log, an Internet journal through which you can document the flow of your life’s activities, thoughts and plans. It connects your past and present to your future through a stream of images and words.

Seeing your life as a coherent narrative gives meaning to it. You can discern the significance of events in your life by joining them together in a narrative sequence. You can make sense of your life by telling it as a story through sequences of photographs in dialogue with creative texts.

The blog form is an ideal literary and artistic structure for recording your experiences and commenting on them. As social media, blogs open opportunities to share life stories with others worldwide through the blogosphere and Twitterverse.

The following photos from a Bible Blog Your Life post appear in my book Through a Bible Lens. I also wrote about them in a personal narrative "How an Angel Led Me into the Garden of Eden" https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-an-angel-led-me-into-the-garden-of-eden/.

I was keynote speaker at the inaugural symposium launching the Institute for Postdigital Narrative at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Europe’s foremost research center for art and new media. The Institute’s founding director Professor Michael Bielicky wrote, “Mankind has always operated on narrative to explain and understand its own existence. Our times, in particular, call for the exploration, expression, and especially, creation of new story-telling formats.”

In The Art of Biblical Narrative, University of California Professor Robert Alter explains that the Bible “has a great deal to teach anyone interested in narrative because its seemingly simple, wonderfully complex art offers such splendid illustrations of the primary possibilities of narrative.” Paying attention to the literary structure of the biblical narrative as you explore its content can offer you significant lessons on how to write your story as it unfolds both visually and verbally.

Bible blogging invites you to link your narrative to the biblical narrative. It asks you to create a dialogue between your story and the Bible’s story. It presents opportunities to use your imagination for discovering how the biblical narrative provides fresh insights for seeing the spiritual dimensions of your storyline.

See Bible Blog Your Life, an exemplary blog created by my wife Miriam and me as a narrative of our daily life http://bibleblogyourlife.blogspot.com. The book Through a Bible Lens teaches how to Bible blog your life by weaving smartphone photographs together with a creative Twitter text.

Monday, April 22, 2019

Don't Pass Over the Significance of the Shape of Matzah

My wife Miriam and I experienced Passover as the Holiday of Freedom by participating in creating a Jewish community for the holiday on the Greek island of Crete.

I photographed hand-made round matzah and machine-made rectangular matzah. These matzah shapes in relation to the spiral challah eaten when Passover ends give us clues to understanding the structure of Jewish consciousness.

I write the sentences in my Times of Israel blog post as Twitter tweets. See https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/dont-pass-over-the-significance-of-the-shapes-of-matzah/

It is based upon the “Torah Tweets” blogart project that I created with my wife Miriam http://bibleblogyourlife.blogspot.com.

Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media explores the conceptual background for Bible blogging. It is written in the language of digital culture and social media for dissemination throughout the Twitterverse and blogosphere.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

Discover a Bible Cure for Smartphone Addiction in Dr. Alexenberg’s Through a Bible Lens

Press Release from Evangelical Press Association

Research at MIT, Columbia University and universities in Israel by Dr. Alexenberg is revealed in his new book

A spiritual cure for the global epidemic of smartphone addiction is revealed in the highly acclaimed book Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media by Dr. Mel Alexenberg. It is based on his research on the interrelationships between digital culture, creative process, and biblical thought at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and as professor at Columbia University and universities in Israel.

The intensity of this plague becomes evident in a Google search “smartphone addiction” that yielded 51,100,000 sites, and 8,380,000 sites for “cures for smartphone addictions.” Scientific papers in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions and other journals of psychology and public health claim that smartphones are the biggest non-drug addiction of the 21st century.

In the language of digital culture: Dr. Alexenberg wrote Through a Bible Lens in the language of digital culture to reach millennials, the most addicted population, while teaching all generations the most up-to-date thoughts on how the Bible offers fresh insights on the impact of new technologies on contemporary life. The book offers resources for The Bible Cure as a three-step program:

Turn off, tune out, unplug: The first step found in the words of the Ten Commandments, “On six days do all your work, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of compete rest, holy to God,” invites you to turn off, tune out, unplug once a week. Make every seventh day different from the other six days of the week. Enjoy family and friends, walk in the forest and fields, and watch the sunrise and sunset.

Reboot your smartphone for spiritual seeing: The second step of the cure does not ask you not to use your smartphone, but rather to redefine how you use it. Reboot your smartphone for spiritual seeing so that you see beyond the digital world of the screen. Experience the real word by transforming your smartphone into a camera for photographing your everyday life from biblical perspectives.

Bible blog your life: The third step teaches you how to use your smartphone to build a personal Bible blog for creating a vibrant dialogue between your emerging life story and the enduring biblical narrative that you can share with others. The Bible Cure is equally effective for preventing smartphone addiction.

“The iPhone has changed our culture and our ways of thinking and acting in the world. The book offers profound insights about meaning and purpose in contemporary life in a brilliant and sustained exposition. Great book!” Dr. Ron Burnett, author of How Images Think; president, University of Art and Design, Vancouver

“A unique and fascinating book. Who would have thought that there would be a way to connect smartphones to the ancient world of the Bible?” Prof. Gerald R. McDermott, Beeson Divinity School, Stamford University, Birmingham, Alabama

"Offers a template, a guidebook on how to experience images of the Divine in every moment and use blogging technology to disseminate them. The wisdom found in this unique book invites us to share the story of our Divine journey.” Bishop Robert Stearns, Executive Director, Eagles’ Wings, New York

“A joy to any lover of the Bible, Christian or Jewish. I not only endorse it, I look forward to integrating these ideas into my personal encounter with Scripture." Dr. Jim Solberg, author of Sinai Speaks; USA National Director, Bridges for Peace

Book details: Title: Through a Bible Lens; Author: Mel Alexenberg; Genre: RELIGION/Biblical Commentary/Old Testament; ISBN: PB -9781595558312 / HB (CW) – 9781595557124; Pages: 244; Publisher: Elm Hill/HarperCollins; Book’s blog http://throughabiblelens.blogspot.com.

Contact the author at melalexenberg@yahoo.com for further information, book reviews, interviews, and articles.

Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media is available on Amazon, other Internet booksellers and bookstores

Friday, April 5, 2019

Discover Spirituality in the Post-Digital Era with Mel Alexenberg’s 'Through a Bible Lens'

Press Release from the publisher Elm Hill/HarperCollins

Mel Alexenberg’s latest book helps readers rekindle their faith in the age of smartphones and social media

Mel Alexenberg redefines what it means to be Christians and Jews in the post-digital era in his new book, Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media. What was originally a blog-art project has becomes a worldwide inspiration for many believers to see biblical teachings in a modern light.

Over the centuries, the Holy Bible has been one of the best-selling books and the most widely distributed piece of literature of all time. According to the Guinness World Records, this book has sold over 5,000,000,000 units as of today. However, with the prevalence of social media and smartphones, it can be difficult to reconcile its usage with spirituality. This is the conundrum that Mel tackled in Through a Bible Lens.

As an artist, writer, and educator, he has delved into the interrelationships between religion and the modern world. Apart from his literary works and lectures, he also uses his passion for post-digital art and his Jewish consciousness to provide a fresh perspective regarding biblical insights for people, both young and old, from all walks of life. His reflection and unique take on spirituality transcend the boundaries people have created to distinguish race, age, religious affiliation, and beliefs.

In Through a Bible Lens, the author illustrated his life in Ra’anana, Israel, with his wife Miriam Benjamin, and their children and grandchildren. Using photographs of their daily routine and his deep understating of the Bible, he was able to transform the use of smartphones and social media into a way of observing and sharing biblical narratives as they unfold in everyday life.

“There is confluence emerging in the twenty-first century between biblical consciousness and post-digi8tal culture. Both share a structure of consciousness and its cultural expression that honors creative process and a different spirit.” Said Mel. He continued, “Make the dialog between the biblical narrative and your life story reach the ends of the Earth through the blogosphere and Twitterverse.”

Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media is available on Amazon and other Internet booksellers and bookstores

Contact author for information, interviews, articles, book reviews.
melalexenberg@yahoo.com

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

TIMES OF ISRAEL Article "Discovering a Bible Cure for Smartphone Addiction"

At The Times of Israel, read my article "Discovering a Bible Cure for Smartphone Addiction in Through a Bible Lens"

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/discovering-a-bible-cure-for-smartphone-addiction-in-through-a-bible-lens/

This is one of the 50 photos in the book "Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media"

ISRAELSEEN Article "Dr. Mel Alexenberg: Bible Cure for Smartphone Addiction Revealed in New Book"

Read my longer and more detailed article in IsraelSeen "Dr. Mel Alexenberg - Bible Cure for Smartphone Addiction Revealed in New Book"

https://israelseen.com/2019/04/02/dr-mel-alexenberg-bible-cure-for-smartphone-addiction-revealed-in-new-book/

This is one of the 50 photos in the book "Through a Bible Lens: Biblical Insights for Smartphone Photography and Social Media"

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

"Through a Bible Lens offers a unique and personal challenge to the reader to integrate Bible Study, the creation that surrounds us, and our personal experience into a “living journal.” Dr. Alexenberg’s approach offers a fun, yes fun, path to integrate pondering the deepest questions of Scripture with modern living and a literally visual journey through life. Written from a Jewish Torah loving perspective, this book will be a joy to any lover of the Bible, Christian or Jewish. I not only endorse it, I look forward to integrating these ideas into my personal encounter with Scripture." - Dr. Jim Solberg, author of Sinai Speaks; USA National Director of Bridges for Peace

“Like anything in God's world, smartphones and social media have the capacity for both blasphemy and blessing. Mel Alexenberg's important book Through a Bible Lens provides our generation the perfect model for the best usage of smartphones and social media to encourage greater appreciation for the Bible and the Land of Israel. Anyone who appreciates either will gain an important perspective from Alexenberg's lens.” – Rabbi Tuly Weisz, editor of The Israel Bible; director of Israel365 and publisher of Breaking Israel News: Latest News from a Biblical Perspective

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, Through a Bible Lens offers a template, a guidebook on how to experience innumerable images of the Divine in every moment and use blogging technology to disseminate them worldwide. Professor Mel Alexenberg invites us to share the story of our own Divine journey through the wisdom found in this unique book.” - Bishop Robert Stearns, Executive Director, Eagles’ Wings, New York

“The iPhone has changed our culture and our ways of thinking and acting in the world. This book brings together spiritual thought, everyday practices of communication and interaction and profound insights about meaning and purpose in contemporary life in a brilliant and sustained exposition. Once again, Alexenberg has carved out a unique point of view that deserves the highest praise and a large readership. Great book!!” – Dr. Ron Burnett, author of How Images Think; president, Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada

“The book's wonderful synthesis between spirituality and technology, heaven and earth, is exciting and thought-provoking. It is a practical demonstration of Solomon's wisdom: "Acknowledge God in all your paths." Alexenberg's affirmation of the spiritual potential of the Internet, blogging, photography, new technologies and social media, brings to mind the dictum of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel: "The old will be renewed, and the new will be sanctified." - Rabbi Chanan Morrison, author of Sapphire from the Land of Israel

“Who would have thought that there would be a way to connect smartphones to the ancient world of the Bible? Professor Alexenberg has the expertise and experience to do so. This is a unique and fascinating book.” – Dr. Gerald R. McDermott, author of Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land and The New Christian Zionism; professor, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama

“An intellectually exciting book that stimulates the sensory palate. Drawing from the Kabbalah and Hebrew traditions, Dr. Alexenberg shares in-depth, meaningful insights about encountering God in the creative process through photography. Using photography as the vehicle, we are guided, one idea at a time, to an understanding of what the author means by, ’looking up, looking out, and looking inward.’” - T. Mandel Chenoweth, head of the Art Education Department, Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma

“The narrative thinks brilliantly outside the box. It synthesizes the realm of the abstruse and transcendent with the realm of the concrete and immanent. It crisscrosses disciplines, from science and technology to philosophy and mysticism to art. Finally, the entirety is managed in a style both accessible and inviting. This is one of those books that other thinkers will wish they had somehow thought about how to write, and to which readers of diverse sorts will simply respond by saying: wow!” - Dr. Ori Z. Soltes, author of Tradition and Transformation; professorial lecturer of Theology and Fine Arts, Georgetown University, Washington, DC

“The most recent, and arguably one of art’s most complete and compelling integrations of the sacred and profane. Mel Alexenberg shows the way to the divine via digital imagery and heightened perception of its presence in the moving face of every person, place, and thing. The book is packed with wisdom and learning about Talmudic tradition, creative expression, and cyberangels. It reads like a swift and soulful breeze. I love every “byte” of it.” - Dr. Shaun McNiff, author of Earth Angels: Engaging the Sacred in Everyday Things; university professor of Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

“There are many parallels in Christian thought and deed that should allow this excellent book to resonate with many people of faith. When I picked up Prof. Alexenberg's book, I happened to be reading a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer by an anonymous 14th century Christian mystic whose words find a parallel in Alexenberg's exhortation to seek the Divine out in the world in all that you see and photograph, and with love. He has succeeded in creating a program for photographers, on a daily basis, to explicitly weave their faith into their art and ultimately, back into their worldview with a fresh perspective.” - Bob Weil, co-author of The Art of iPhone Photography

“In his sophisticated and highly literate book, Prof. Alexenberg weaves in a playful way the threads between contemporary digital culture and traditional Jewish wisdom. In an original way, he invites us to connect the networked world of Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, WhatsApp and Blogspot, with the concept of the unseen God. Using the metaphor of the camera, he provides interesting and surprising intersections between new-media culture and theological issues.” - Dr. Yael Eylat Van-Essen, author of Digital Culture: Virtuality, Society and Information; professor, Holon Institute of Technology, Israel

“Connecting the biblical world with the modern interconnected reality of today is so inspiring on many levels. I really enjoyed it because it gives us an amazing perspective on our own existence, especially in the age of the interconnected iPhone culture.” - Prof. Michael Bielicky, head of Department of Digital Media/Postdigital Narratives, University of Art and Design/ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany

“In Through a Bible Lens, Alexenberg offers us a magnificent and original approach that interconnects art, creative processes, religion and new media technologies. The book is an important contribution to the study of media and is a must read for anyone interested in our contemporary culture.” – Dr. Lucia Leao, author of The Labyrinth of Hypermedia and The Chip and the Kaleidoscope: Studies in New Media; professor of Communications and Semiotics, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil

“I am honored to see how Professor Alexenberg draws on my teachings and makes them come alive in the world of smartphones and social media. He provides a practical guide for photographing the splendor of God by opening your eyes in wonder in whatever place you find yourself. Seeing with eyes of wonder is seeing for the first time every time.” - Rabbi David Aaron, author of The Secret Life of God: Discovering the Divine within You; dean of Isralight and Yeshivat Oryta in the Old City of Jerusalem

“Mel Alexenberg offers a scintillating experiment in creativity. His work is an invitation to deepen your spiritual sensibilities as you extend your imagination. An interesting and relevant approach to spiritual practice and creative expression.” - Jan Phillips, author of God Is at Eye Level: Photography as a Healing Art

“In his astonishingly innovative book, Mel Alexenberg quotes photographer Jan Phillips, who writes, “Everywhere I look, there God is looking back, looking straight back." Alexenberg is able to perceive that Godly gaze not only in nature around us or the heavens above, but in the smartphone we hold in our hand.” – Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, author of thelordismyshepard.com: Seeing God in Cyberspace; spiritual leader at Temple Beth El, Stamford, Connecticut

“Whether we see this book as a book of art – a mystical computer program for spiritual seeing – or a book about art – to actually see it, we must consult the beautiful blog at http://bibleblogyourlife.blogspot.com. Mel Alexenberg is a wonderfully accomplished worker on a great project: to make art a conduit for the Divine. - Rabbi Dr. Shimon Cowen, author, Aesthetics and the Divine; director, Institute for Judaism and Civilization, Victoria, Australia

“Alexenberg proposes that text and image—something as simple as photos taken with a smart phone, and multiplied in their resonance by the internet—can be used as a consciousness raising tool, at once personal and collective. With such simple means, we can attune ourselves to the sacred dimensions of our lives from moment to moment. In fresh, clear language, he brings his detailed knowledge of Torah texts and what he calls "the down-to-earth mysticism of the kabbalah" to bear on daily life, showing how the annual round of sacred readings from that spiraling scroll provides prompts for deepening our personal and artistic practice.” - Peter Samis, co-author of Creating the Visitor-centered Museum; associate curator, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

“Strikes a balance between Kabbalah and contemporary culture. It is replete with imagery from both universes. It is literate, wise, and easily accessible. Alexenberg offers us an elegant and devout example of an evolved Jewish Weltanschauung. Make no mistake; this is a serious contribution to contemporary neo-kabbalah.” - Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, author of God Was in This Place & I, i Did Not Know: Finding Self, Spirituality and Ultimate Meaning and Kabbalah: A Love Story; scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco

“In Through a Bible Lens, Mel Alexenberg continues his meandering journey seeking Beauty and the Divine within the commonplace. Gazing vertically and horizontally, across literary, cyber, aesthetic and earthly texts/spaces, the journey's end point is always the same - sublime joy in the revelation of God in the World, God as the world.” Dr. Randall Rhodes, Provost, American University of Armenia, Yerevan

“I can feel your joy, warmth and good humor in your images. Your approach, while fundamentally spiritual and fired by a kindred spark as my own passion for seeing, is a mirror of a different sort of our mutual exploration of our humanity.” - Julie DuBose, author of Effortless Beauty: Photography as an Expression of Eye, Mind and Heart; director of The Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography, Colorado

"Menahem (Mel) Alexenberg is "tov ro'i," "goodly of vision." He sees godliness and goodliness in even the most mundane, and instructs others to behold that vision. We are blessed to have such a wise teacher in our midst." - Rabbi Bezalel Naor, author of A Kabbalist’s Diary and The Limit of Intellectual Freedom: The Letters of Rav Kook; former head of institutes of higher Jewish learning in United States and Israel

THE BOOK COVER

The cover image is based upon a serigraph in the collection of the Israel Museum that was created in Jerusalem by the book’s author, artist Mel Alexenberg. It shows two digitized Rembrandt angels ascending from a NASA satellite image of the Land of Israel while emerging from a smartphone. It illustrates the biblical commentary that the angels in Jacob’s dream go up from the Land of Israel and come down to earth throughout the world. A smartphone has the power to make this vision a reality. Beyond reading the Bible as a book that records history, see it as the blueprint for us to create it.