BibleProject

About BibleProject

BibleProject is a non-profit, crowdfunded media organization based in Portland, Oregon, co-founded in 2014 by Tim Mackie and Jon Collins. Its mission, stated simply, is to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Since its founding, BibleProject has produced over 180 animated videos, more than 350 podcast episodes, and supplementary study resources that have collectively garnered over 620 million views in more than 200 countries. With over five million YouTube subscribers, it stands as one of the most impactful biblical education initiatives in the digital era.

Tim Mackie and Jon Collins met at SkateChurch, a Portland youth ministry, and both attended Multnomah University. Mackie holds a PhD in Semitic languages and biblical studies and brings deep scholarly training in Hebrew, Greek, and the history of biblical interpretation. Collins brings a background in media production and a talent for clear visual communication. Their collaboration combines rigorous academic theology with compelling animated storytelling, a combination that has proved unusually effective in reaching audiences with no prior background in biblical study alongside those with substantial theological training.

Content and Format

The BibleProject YouTube channel covers three main categories of content. The first is book overviews, animated summaries of every book in the Bible that trace the literary structure, main themes, and place of each book within the larger biblical narrative. The second is theme videos, which follow a single concept or word, such as the image of God, the Holy Spirit, the Messiah, wisdom, or heaven and earth, through its development across the entire canon. The third is podcast-companion videos, which offer visual accompaniment to the BibleProject podcast's extended explorations of specific topics.

The most recent video series in the archive include sustained explorations of the concept of the Anointed One (Messiah/Christ) through Israel's history, the Firstborn theme across the canon, and series tracing the development of key Deuteronomy passages. Genesis is by far the most referenced book, with 25 references, followed by Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Psalms, and Exodus, reflecting the team's deep investment in the Torah and the Prophets as the foundational framework for New Testament interpretation.

Theological Position

BibleProject holds a broadly evangelical theological position while intentionally avoiding denominational and sectarian distinctives. Mackie and Collins affirm the Bible as the inspired Word of God and read it as a unified narrative that finds its resolution in Jesus. Their approach is consistently Christ-centered without being narrowly confessional, and they engage freely with the full range of Christian theological traditions, drawing insights from patristic writers, Jewish interpretive tradition, and contemporary scholarship alike.

The organization emphasizes the literary and canonical dimensions of Scripture. It reads the Bible as a work of extraordinary literary craft, rich with deliberate structural patterns, intertextual echoes, and theological motifs developed across centuries of composition. This literary sensitivity does not come at the expense of historical engagement: the team takes the ancient context of the texts seriously and integrates archaeological and historical insights into their presentations.

Approach to the Text

BibleProject's hermeneutical commitment is to reading Scripture as a unified whole. Rather than treating individual passages in isolation, every video works to situate its subject within the larger canonical story. The image of God introduced in Genesis 1 is traced through the royal imagery of the Psalms, the servant of Isaiah, and the incarnation in John. The covenant with Abraham is followed through Moses, David, the exile, and its transformation in Paul. This panoramic approach gives viewers a sense of the Bible's internal coherence that compartmentalized reading often obscures.

The team also takes the original languages seriously, regularly attending to the significance of Hebrew and Greek vocabulary in ways that illuminate dimensions of the text invisible in translation. Mackie's doctoral training in Semitic languages gives this engagement authentic scholarly grounding.

Accessibility and Impact

One of BibleProject's defining achievements is making serious biblical theology genuinely accessible to non-specialists. The animated format, clear explanations, and consistent focus on the big picture allow viewers who have never engaged with academic theology to grasp the literary design and theological coherence of the biblical canon. At the same time, those with theological training find the content substantive enough to be genuinely enriching. This dual accessibility is rare and represents the project's most significant contribution to popular biblical education.

Target Audience

BibleProject is suitable for anyone who wants to understand the Bible more deeply, from complete beginners to advanced students of theology. It is particularly valuable for those who want to read the Bible as a coherent whole rather than as a collection of isolated proof texts, for those interested in the literary design of Scripture, and for educators and church leaders who need accessible, theologically reliable teaching resources. It is available entirely free of charge, supported by voluntary donations.