Check this out – it’s a web applet that takes a text and constructs the social relationships between the names mentioned in the text. Originally it was meant for mapping out novels, but someone has run the program on the text of the New Testament:
You can use the mouse well to zoom in and out. You can use the mouse or arrow keys to scan around and see the connections.
Of course Jesus is at the center – but it’s interesting to see how the other folks in the NT relate.
Thanks to ESV Bible Blog for the pointer.
Strange… Tychicus is connected to Jesus but not to Paul. This has something to do with the co-occurrence lists accounting for nouns but not pronouns, maybe? Even if it needs some debugging, it’s a nifty thing 🙂