{"schemaVersion":"1.2","articleId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020","locale":"en","canonicalUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/","articleVersion":"1.0","translationVersion":"1.0","release":{"releaseId":"2026-10-11.4","manifestUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/data/releases/2026-10-11.4/manifest.json","citationsUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/data/releases/2026-10-11.4/citations.json","publicRecordBundleUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/data/releases/2026-10-11.4/hieropedia-public-record-2026-10-11.4.tar.gz"},"claims":[{"segmentId":"s001","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s001","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s001","sourceHash":"30142bd4e4f9d53f","translationHash":"30142bd4e4f9d53f","excerpt":"This entry covers Durendal’s 2020 text-generation and portrait-animation experiment. For the later Lucerne installation and HSLU successor research, see Deus in Machina (AI Jesus) .","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s002","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s002","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s002","sourceHash":"719324628f25812b","translationHash":"719324628f25812b","excerpt":"AI_Jesus, presented publicly as A.I. Jesus, was a text-generation and portrait-animation experiment released by engineer George Davila Durendal in 2020. It combined passages imitating the King James Bible with a later video presentation in ","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-1","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-1","sourceUrls":["https://github.com/GeorgeDavila/AI_Jesus/tree/80d1d3ebf5a89f5bca909730db0d7020b2bdce73"]},{"referenceId":"ref-2","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-2","sourceUrls":["https://gdurendal.medium.com/i-created-an-a-i-clone-of-jesus-4263339c327"]},{"referenceId":"ref-4","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-4","sourceUrls":["https://gdurendal.medium.com/deepfake-jesus-83ec11164460"]}]},{"segmentId":"s003","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s003","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s003","sourceHash":"e81540c522399afc","translationHash":"e81540c522399afc","excerpt":"Development and generated texts","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s004","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s004","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s004","sourceHash":"3a121476d40a3cba","translationHash":"3a121476d40a3cba","excerpt":"Durendal announced the project on 25 August 2020. He described a natural-language model trained only on the King James Bible and intended to reproduce its style. In an email interview with The Christian Post, he said development had taken a","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-2","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-2","sourceUrls":["https://gdurendal.medium.com/i-created-an-a-i-clone-of-jesus-4263339c327"]},{"referenceId":"ref-3","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-3","sourceUrls":["https://www.christianpost.com/news/engineer-creates-artificial-intelligence-clone-of-jesus-that-recites-bible.html"]}]},{"segmentId":"s005","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s005","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s005","sourceHash":"927bf1dfc6443d19","translationHash":"927bf1dfc6443d19","excerpt":"The surviving repository contains six texts totaling approximately 60,000 words. The Plague, Caesar and The End of Days were uploaded on 25 August; Blood, Greeks and Wisdom followed on 26 August. Durendal described the first group as more r","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-1","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-1","sourceUrls":["https://github.com/GeorgeDavila/AI_Jesus/tree/80d1d3ebf5a89f5bca909730db0d7020b2bdce73"]},{"referenceId":"ref-2","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-2","sourceUrls":["https://gdurendal.medium.com/i-created-an-a-i-clone-of-jesus-4263339c327"]}]},{"segmentId":"s006","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s006","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s006","sourceHash":"7e0f3589a274f03c","translationHash":"7e0f3589a274f03c","excerpt":"The outputs combine biblical names, prophetic announcements and familiar verbal formulas, sometimes with broken grammar or incongruous meanings. The Plague includes the sentence, “ Then shall the strange god be as the sand which is in the w","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://github.com/GeorgeDavila/AI_Jesus/blob/80d1d3ebf5a89f5bca909730db0d7020b2bdce73/the_plague.txt#L28"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-1","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-1","sourceUrls":["https://github.com/GeorgeDavila/AI_Jesus/tree/80d1d3ebf5a89f5bca909730db0d7020b2bdce73"]},{"referenceId":"ref-5","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-5","sourceUrls":["https://techxplore.com/news/2020-09-ai-jesus-bible-inspired-verse.html"]}]},{"segmentId":"s007","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s007","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s007","sourceHash":"b7a9b88c4300b9cc","translationHash":"b7a9b88c4300b9cc","excerpt":"Deepfake presentation","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s008","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s008","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s008","sourceHash":"02ab6dfcc98c3b59","translationHash":"02ab6dfcc98c3b59","excerpt":"On 2 September, Durendal described extending the project with animated representations based on three paintings of Jesus: Salvator Mundi, the Sinai Christ Pantocrator and Raphael’s Transfiguration. He recorded himself reading an excerpt fro","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-4","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-4","sourceUrls":["https://gdurendal.medium.com/deepfake-jesus-83ec11164460"]}]},{"segmentId":"s009","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s009","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s009","sourceHash":"df9d8cd5c2b3cdc9","translationHash":"df9d8cd5c2b3cdc9","excerpt":"The repository’s surviving commits run from 25 August to 2 September 2020. [ 1 ]","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-1","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-1","sourceUrls":["https://github.com/GeorgeDavila/AI_Jesus/tree/80d1d3ebf5a89f5bca909730db0d7020b2bdce73"]}]},{"segmentId":"s010","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s010","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s010","sourceHash":"1cfae8cff8df4290","translationHash":"1cfae8cff8df4290","excerpt":"Reception","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s011","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s011","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s011","sourceHash":"e95aab9d15ac97b4","translationHash":"e95aab9d15ac97b4","excerpt":"The Christian Post interviewed Durendal, while TechXplore discussed the passages and his attempts to balance stylistic coherence with randomness. [ 3 , 5 ] A sermon published by the United Church of Hinesburg on 20 September 2020 quoted the","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-3","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-3","sourceUrls":["https://www.christianpost.com/news/engineer-creates-artificial-intelligence-clone-of-jesus-that-recites-bible.html"]},{"referenceId":"ref-5","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-5","sourceUrls":["https://techxplore.com/news/2020-09-ai-jesus-bible-inspired-verse.html"]},{"referenceId":"ref-6","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-6","sourceUrls":["https://www.ucofh.org/pastors-blog/heaven-is-like-a-landowner"]}]},{"segmentId":"s012","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s012","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s012","sourceHash":"afc07374401e9213","translationHash":"afc07374401e9213","excerpt":"In a 2026 comparative study, Esra Nur Çiftçi and Muhammet Yeşilyurt treated Durendal’s project separately from later Jesus chatbots and the Lucerne Deus in Machina installation. They identified its combination of biblical imitation and anim","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}],"sourceReferences":[{"referenceId":"ref-7","referenceUrl":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/#ref-7","sourceUrls":["https://doi.org/10.33415/daad.1961442"]}]},{"segmentId":"s013","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s013","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s013","sourceHash":"d48567cf695f336e","translationHash":"d48567cf695f336e","excerpt":"Source note. Training details come from Durendal; the repository contains no training code or model weights. Contemporary coverage often repeats his account, and the later study analyzes published documents. The release dates do not establi","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s014","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s014","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s014","sourceHash":"69824d3b0e70ca6a","translationHash":"69824d3b0e70ca6a","excerpt":"References","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s015","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s015","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s015","sourceHash":"5f21cf7ee6d906d7","translationHash":"5f21cf7ee6d906d7","excerpt":"George Davila Durendal. AI_Jesus repository and README. Revision of 2 September 2020; text uploads dated 25–26 August. George Davila Durendal. “I Created an A.I. Clone of Jesus.” Medium, 25 August 2020. Brandon Showalter. “Engineer creates ","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://github.com/GeorgeDavila/AI_Jesus/tree/80d1d3ebf5a89f5bca909730db0d7020b2bdce73"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://gdurendal.medium.com/i-created-an-a-i-clone-of-jesus-4263339c327"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.christianpost.com/news/engineer-creates-artificial-intelligence-clone-of-jesus-that-recites-bible.html"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://gdurendal.medium.com/deepfake-jesus-83ec11164460"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://techxplore.com/news/2020-09-ai-jesus-bible-inspired-verse.html"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://www.ucofh.org/pastors-blog/heaven-is-like-a-landowner"},{"kind":"external-source","target":"https://doi.org/10.33415/daad.1961442"}]},{"segmentId":"s016","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s016","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s016","sourceHash":"04c83218faff990e","translationHash":"04c83218faff990e","excerpt":"Related entries","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}]},{"segmentId":"s017","claimId":"hp:cases:ai-jesus-durendal-2020:s017","anchor":"claim-hp-cases-ai-jesus-durendal-2020-s017","sourceHash":"c07a1f37d26c72b6","translationHash":"c07a1f37d26c72b6","excerpt":"Deus in Machina (AI Jesus) · Religious chatbots and scripture interfaces · Human–AI coauthorship","sourcePointers":[{"kind":"editorial-record","target":"https://hieropedia.org/cases/ai-jesus-durendal-2020/editorial-notes/"}]}]}