Method

What this is

This is a free English Bible. The English is contemporary, the kind of sentence a fluent reader would write on 7 October 2026. It is drafted from the earliest recoverable Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Reading is public. There is no account, no paywall, and no advertising.

Scripture is the page. This method, the canon, the sources, and the models are one click away.

English that stays closed

While a passage is drafted, English Bibles, commentaries, and study notes stay closed. Ancient-language lexicons and grammars are allowed. The Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Latin are witnesses to the source wording. They are not models for the English.

If a draft echoes a published English Bible, that line is rewritten. The English on this site is this project’s own text, released under CC BY 4.0.

How a line is chosen

The witnesses come first. From them the draft takes the earliest recoverable wording, and from that wording the English line. The same wording produces the footnote when a real choice was made. Both the line and the note go to the reader. The note is never stripped off to make a clean edition.

When witnesses disagree, the printed line is the earliest recoverable wording. Age matters. So does agreement among witnesses, and so do signs that a reading is a later change. The oldest copy is the default. Any departure from it is footnoted.

Hebrew and Aramaic books use the Leningrad Codex as the continuous medieval copy, through an open diplomatic text. Dead Sea Scrolls and other earlier witnesses replace it when they preserve an earlier reading. The Samaritan Pentateuch is a witness, not the default.

Greek books use the oldest papyri and the great codices. The working Greek this project will show is an open text: Swete for the Greek Old Testament, and the SBL Greek New Testament for the New Testament. Copyrighted editions are not reprinted. That means no Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, no Rahlfs, no Nestle-Aland, and no NETS.

Books that exist in Hebrew or Aramaic are translated from those witnesses. Wisdom of Solomon and 2 Maccabees are translated from Greek because that is the language they were written in. Where Qumran preserves an earlier Semitic Tobit or Sirach, that wording is preferred and the later Greek is footnoted. Daniel’s additions stay in the book and are footnoted as absent from the Hebrew and Aramaic copies found at Qumran. The Greek additions to Esther stay in Esther the same way.

What a footnote holds

Notes are stored on the verse, not in a side file that can be dropped. Three kinds:

• Textual: the witnesses, what the oldest copy says, what we printed, and why.
• Translation: the source word, the sense we chose, and the live alternative we did not print.
• Process: the model, the draft date, and the review status.

A stable verse with an obvious English equivalent does not get an empty note. Any real choice does. If a witness is uncertain, the note says so. This project does not invent a manuscript reading to fill a hole.

The divine name and recurring words

When the source uses the divine name, the English prints “Yahweh.” The consonants are YHWH. The vowels are a later convention. The first footnote in each book that uses the name says this. A book whose witnesses say God, the Lord, or the Most High, and do not show the four consonants, does not have Yahweh written in.

Recurring words get one project-wide English decision in the glossary, footnoted on first use. “Messiah” is the working choice for Hebrew mashiach and Greek christos. “Loyalty” is the working choice for Hebrew hesed. “Redeemer” is the working choice for Hebrew goel. “Covenant” is the working choice for Hebrew berit and Greek diatheke.

The two canons

The first canon uses 32 AD, the death of Christ as this project dates it, as the cutoff for “already in use.” Many historians argue for 30 or 33. This project uses 32. A first-canon book is included when it was already written and in religious use by that date, and it belongs to the later Catholic canon or to the mainstream Greek or Slavonic Orthodox canon.

The 27 New Testament books are in. They were written after 32 AD, and the canon page says that plainly. The cutoff applies only to the first canon. The New Testament is not treated as a set of books already in use at Jesus’ death.

Reader order follows the Greek scripture tradition for the first canon, then the usual New Testament order. Books that were examined and left out are listed, with the reason, on the canon page. They are not given empty chapters in the reader.

What a published passage records

Each published passage records the model name and the draft date, and whether anyone has reviewed it. Untranslated books say they are not translated yet. No sample English is presented as scripture.