Six translations, free
Most study apps hold one Bible and call it the text. This room holds the
Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures together — each in a translation
that tradition actually reads, not a single version handed to everybody.
All six are in the public domain, which is why we can give them to you
outright. Reading costs nothing. No account, no card, no
trial clock running in the background.
Every one below opens straight into the reader, in that
translation. The four Christian Bibles land on the same five verses on
purpose — open them one after another and watch the words move.
Jewish
- JPS 1917The Holy Scriptures
- The Jewish Publication Society's translation of the Tanakh — the
first English Bible translated by a committee of Jewish scholars, and
still the one quoted across a century of English-language Jewish
writing.
Read Genesis 1 →
Christian
- BSBBerean Standard Bible
- A modern, readable translation worked directly from the Hebrew and
Greek. This is the room's default reading text.
Read John 1 →
- KJVKing James Version
- 1611. The translation that shaped the sound of English itself, and
the text most older commentary is quoting when it quotes.
The same chapter, 1611 →
- WEBWorld English Bible
- A plain modern English revision in the Authorized Version's line —
the familiar structure without the archaic grammar.
The same chapter, plainly →
- DRADouay-Rheims (Challoner)
- The historic English Catholic Bible, translated from the Latin
Vulgate. It carries the deuterocanonical books — Tobit, Judith, Wisdom,
Sirach, Maccabees — that the others leave out, and the readings Catholic
commentary is built on.
The same chapter, from the Vulgate →
Or read Tobit 4, which is only here →
What's on the shelf behind them
Scripture is only half of it. The commentary the teachers read from is
public-domain too, and the same reading is open to you. See the full list of
editions and where each came from on the sources page.
Counted from the room's own shelf just
now, not typed into this page.
Why hold all three
Because the argument is the point. When a Jewish, a Catholic and a Muslim
reader look at the same passage, they are often not even looking at the same
words — and you cannot see where a disagreement actually starts until you
can put the two translations next to each other.
That is what the room is for: seven traditions on one
passage, an agnostic historian to referee, and every claim citing a book you
can open yourself.
Start reading free
See a panel first