The Brick Testament

The Brick Testament

"Adam and Eve" from The Brick Testament website
Type of site	Unknown
Available in	English
Created by	Elbe Spurling
Revenue	Unknown
Slogan(s)	Unknown
Website	www.thebricktestament.com
Alexa rank	Unknown
Commercial	no
Registration	Unknown
Current status	Active
Content license	Unknown
Unknown

The Brick Testament is a project created by Elbe Spurling in which Bible stories are illustrated using still photographs of dioramas constructed entirely out of Lego bricks.

The project began as a website in October 2001 that featured six stories from the book of Genesis, and is completely unaffiliated with the Lego company. There is also a Brick Testament book series.

Throughout stories are retold using passages from the Bible, with chapter and verse cited, the wording being a free adaptation that Spurling says is based on a number of public domain Bible translations. Occasionally, mostly when images are being used to contrast with the underlying scripture, Spurling dramatises the images with additional text. Such text is displayed in gray instead of the usual black.

Spurling's own commentary occasionally appears in illustrations and is displayed in gray text, and also as original titles for the stories themselves. For example, Spurling presents a story titled, "Stephen Gets Stoned" which is based on the New Testament book, the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6-7. The scripture verse is cited directly beneath the illustration and commentary:

A Rolling Stone article that is included as a link in the Brick Testament web site suggests that Spurling is an atheist. In 2015 Spurling announced on Facebook that she was an atheist, a transgender woman, and a lesbian, and had legally changed her name to Elbe Spurling but would likely retain her birth name, Brendan Powell Smith, for her books.

The dioramas seen in The Brick Testament are created from Spurling's personal Lego collection. The pieces come from hundreds of Lego sets dating from the 1960s to the present.

In the few instances where alterations are made to Lego elements, they are generally simple changes made with a hobby knife or permanent ink marker. An example alteration is God's hair: Spurling made God's white hair by carving a white helmet piece (found on Peeron). The only completely non-Lego part of Spurling's scenes is the background sky.

All of Spurling's images are digital. Spurling photographed early scenes with a Nikon Coolpix 950. She now uses a Nikon Coolpix 4500. After photographing the scenes, she adds speech balloons and sometimes makes alterations using image editing software.