Not as rare as you would think. Knuth, though not formally trained, has been doing the same (from his wikipedia page):

>In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a Lutheran,[10] is also the author of 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated,[11] in which he examines the Bible by a process of systematic sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3, verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf.

3:16 is a beautiful book, and the idea underlying it is a very nice one. Knuth also has a book called "Things a computer scientist rarely talks about", derived from a set of lectures he gave at MIT, which is mostly about the 3:16 project.

I don't think it was exactly "a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf". I think Knuth worked with each calligrapher individually; Zapf just happens to be the most famous of them (albeit mostly for his work in typography).

Someone -- I forget who -- called Knuth's technique in the 3:16 project "the way of the cross section", which is a lovely pun.

(In case it is relevant to anyone's evaluation of the above: I am an atheist but spent years as a Christian.)

I always felt programming was a very theological exercise. Where else can you sit down and just start saying "let there be..." and have things come into existence?

Its hard not to let it push your cosmology a tiny bit.