I have spent a lot of time thinking about this New Testament letter over the last thirty years. During the summer of 2021 I took some time out to produce a visual meditation on this ancient document as a 50th birthday present for one of my best mates. It isn’t intended to be an easy-to-digest piece of work - more something to look at and reflect on as you go past. Happy Birthday Andy.
Here is a download link for non-commercial use.
JATTOG is the project of a lifetime¹.
(I have produced two videos for this post - here is the first that gives an overview of the book. The process film follows at the end)
Three years ago I had the pleasure of seeing Dear Theo step out into the wild. At the time I remember feeling such pleasure being able to be involved in a project alongside Biblica - the International Bible Society no less! In October 2018, Trevor Wilson and I met for lunch in London (remember those days?) to discuss possible future steps and we got into an interesting chat about the Joseph story arc in Genesis that arrives at this line in chapter 50 verse 20:
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
I had been teaching this story throughout my time as a schoolteacher and continued to be fascinated by the way that Joseph was empowered to overcome serious wrongdoing by his brothers. In our discussion, Trevor and I wondered whether there might be the possibility of making something that could bring the story of this triumph into earshot of contemporary culture.
Although we had no formal agreement in place I decided that this was too important for me to sidestep developing the ideas, so I set about repeating the journey that I had taken with Dear Theo. Printing out a book of the Genesis text, I got to work scribbling ideas as I reflected on the text.
Here is a section from that initial document:
From chapter 40 where Joseph interprets the dreams of the Baker and Cupbearer.
The initial annotation of the text took me some time - with the intensity of schoolteaching and numerous other pressures I didn’t finish it until August 2019. From here I honed the idea and produced a pitch document. Already I had JATTOG as the working title and the dual coding concept in place.
From my initial pitch document: I saw JATTOG as an exercise in dual coding. Me old mate Andy Tharby writes here about it with his considerable pedagogical brain.
Dual coding is something that I have been doing naturally for years without realising that there was a proper label for it. Essentially, it is when you expose an audience to multiple forms (or codes) of information. Bouncing between those different codes can be a very fruitful learning experience because it encourages the reader to make fresh connections. As I see it - the book of Genesis has too many assumptions being dumped on it by a cynical secular culture and I wanted to create a space where you could lay a fresh pair of eyes on the storyline.
May 2020 - around the time that the pandemic was really digging its heels in - I was idly looking through my twitter feed and realised that the Scottish Bible Society were following me. I had heard that they had being printing a lot of Dear Theo copies so I got in touch with them to see what the situation was.
What emerged at this point was something a little surprising to me - the team at SBS not only liked my work - they understood it and were really using it. Jen Robertson had been writing some excellent resources for youth groups that encouraged deeper reflection. This was very exciting!
You can probably guess what came next: I found myself nestled in the project of a lifetime. Fiona MacDonald and the senior staff team committed to JATTOG as a key project going forwards and we began in earnest developing the work. The video below outlines the process in a bit more detail.
One thing that the video doesn’t mention is that at each stage of sketching and drafting we had review zoom meetings. This was fabulously helpful to me - and links back to Scott Berkun’s third principle. In the end this process has been such a delight - partly because of the end result but also the meeting of minds. Although I have ended up despising anything zoom related, it did facilitate a new network of friendships with people I have yet to meet in person.
Pete taking a thirsty break from a detailed review session with me and Emma.
If you would like to purchase copies of this book please visit www.scottish.bible/joseph.
There are a number of people who were key to this project who I want to express some gratitude: to the many students who sat in my classroom over the decades - I hope you enjoy this book and it brings back memories of the desk-shaking zombie cow sequence; Fiona McDonald for your motherly ownership of the vision; Jen Robertson for seeing the point and gently helping me walk through every zoom discussion with fabulous feedback; Adrian Armstrong for your penetrating insight and theological support (although the biggest thing for me was how warm you are); Emma Galloway for so ably (and cheerfully) managing the project; Pete Barnsley for your expert attention to details that most people take for granted; The senior staff team at SBS for committing to this project wholeheartedly (I hope to have some haggis with you soon); Trevor Wilson and Biblica for the foundations and encouragement; My wife and son who mean everything to me - especially those unexpected healing hugs - and finally Graham and Rosemary Legg who have been such a source of grace for so long.
¹ although I am praying for a longer innings!