Having spent thousands of hours looking at code and at scripture, I’ve noticed many ways in which the two are different. In no particular order:

  • Repetition in code is often a bad thing. Not always in scripture. (Especially not in the psalms.)
  • Saying the same thing in slightly different ways is bad in code but ok/good/beneficial/useful in scripture. (Especially not in the psalms.)
  • Code doesn’t do the past tense. Scripture is full of it.
  • Ambiguity in code is bad. Ambiguity and nuance of language in prayers/psalms is real, and sometimes beneficial.
  • A relationship with God is not as formulaic or prescriptive as code.
  • Code is not real life.
  • Code is not poetry. (arguably)
  • Both were/are written for very different purposes.
  • Both were/are written for very different audiences.
  • Metaphors and similes don’t make for good code, but are used extensively in scripture.
  • Code values conciseness and can still be very expressive. Scripture isn’t limited this way and benefits from more details and sometimes also from duplication and repetition.
  • Scripture teaches us about God. Code teaches us about the people and organization that created it. (Yes, parts of scripture do this also.)
  • You can’t “execute” or “run” parts of scripture to see what they do.
  • Code is not good for rhetorical questions or statements.
  • Code and pronouns don’t go together. Context is key to clear, understandable code. It can be clearer in narrative writing, but it still isn’t always obvious who “he” is.
  • Code isn’t meant to be read aloud. Much (most?) of scripture is/was.
  • Code often comes with a full revision history. Some parts of scripture might be easier to understand if we could see every way it’s changed in getting to the translation(s) we read now.
  • There are expectations that code will be extended, changed, or otherwise modified over time. Scripture is read-only! (Note. The consequences and value of any changes are very different too.)
  • Code uses absolute language. This idea can be appealing when reading scripture, but it isn’t all absolutes. Assuming it is means important aspects can be missed or misunderstood.
  • The Bible contains nuance and language with multiple meanings. This is not good for code.
  • Both need/use different levels of detail:
    • Scripture is sometimes deliberately vague and unclear on purpose, to encourage depths of investigation. Sometimes, seemingly unnecessary details are repeated.
    • Code is sometimes brief and with an unclear purpose. Other times it includes unnecessarily long names, or validates things that could never be false, or has comments that repeat (or duplicate) the code. (When duplication is bad.)

Of course, there are similarities too!