Anselm Project Bible
This document outlines the technical specifications, translation policies, and AI methodology used to create the Anselm Project Bible (APB). The translation itself is Version 2.0. Version 2.5 (April 2026) replaced the project's in-house morphological analysis with authoritative external data — see Version History for the full account.
Base Editions
The APB is a fresh translation based on the following standard critical editions of the original language texts:
Westminster Leningrad Codex
The Unicode/XML Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC), which represents the Masoretic Text (MT).
SBL Greek New Testament
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (SBLGNT), a modern critical text.
Variant Policy
The APB is a direct translation of the specified base texts (WLC and SBLGNT) and does not depart from them to adopt alternate readings from other manuscripts.
Other important textual traditions like the Septuagint (LXX) and the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are not used for textual adoption. The translation reflects the WLC and SBLGNT as received.
Textual Particulars
The translation follows the Masoretic scribal tradition of prioritizing the Qere (what is to be read) in the main text. For example, in Psalm 100:3, the APB reads "...it is he who made us, and we are his," following the Qere ("and His") rather than the Ketiv ("and not").
Titles given in the Hebrew text (e.g., "A psalm of thanksgiving") are included as part of verse 1, following a common English convention.
The APB uses the psalm numbering from the Masoretic Text (WLC) exclusively and does not include alternative numbering from the Septuagint/Vulgate.
The APB faithfully translates its base texts as-is, without attempting to harmonize them. When the NT (SBLGNT) quotes the OT using a Septuagint reading, the APB translates that reading. When translating the original OT passage (WLC), it translates the Masoretic text. (e.g., Hebrews 10:5 reads "...a body you prepared for me," while Psalm 40:6 reads "...you opened my ears.").
The Deuterocanonical books (Apocrypha) are not included. They may be considered for inclusion as a separate volume in a future update.
The Blind Translator Approach
The translation AI has no idea it's working with biblical text.
Version 2.0 implements a "blind translator" approach to prevent AI bias. All references to Scripture, the Bible, theology, and religion were removed from translation prompts. The AI receives ancient language text and translates it to formal English without any awareness of the content's nature. This prevents the AI from defaulting to traditional renderings and forces strictly literal translation from the source text.
A translation that is more literal and in many places clunkier than previous versions, but significantly more honest. The clunkiness is proof the system is working in theory - when the AI isn't cheating by recognizing biblical patterns, you get word-for-word accuracy even when it sounds awkward in English.
The Four-Step Pipeline
The APB v2.0 uses a four-step translation pipeline:
Generate Candidates
The system generates five translation candidates for each pericope from the source text, with the AI strictly forbidden from introducing concepts not lexically present.
Judge Selection & Name Extraction
A separate judge AI reviews all five candidates and selects the best translation based on literal accessibility, ideological fidelity, dignified English, and internal consistency. During this step, the judge also extracts all proper names from the selected translation.
Name Standardization
A specialized AI standardizes the extracted proper names to modern English Bible conventions (e.g., YHWH → "the LORD", Elohim → "God"). This ensures consistency across all 66 books.
Syntax Polishing
A polisher AI rearranges words for natural English syntax without changing word choices, substituting synonyms, or adding/removing content. Only minimal articles and prepositions required by English grammar may be adjusted.
Each step saves its output incrementally. If something crashes at step 3, you don't lose the work from steps 1 and 2. This creates a transparent audit trail where you can see the literal translation, the syntactic changes made, and the rationale for each step.
Technical Stack
Hybrid AI Approach: Version 2.0 uses both xAI's Grok 4.1 and OpenAI for different tasks:
Grok 4.1
Translation generation using fast-non-reasoning variant, and judge selection using fast-reasoning variant. Grok handles all the actual translation and evaluation.
OpenAI
Handles JSON formatting and structured output validation. OpenAI doesn't crash nearly as much with structured outputs, providing reliability where it matters.
Grok is significantly cheaper than GPT-5, allowing full-power processing constantly for the linguistic work without balancing cost versus quality. The system returns data fast enough to complete the entire Bible translation in three days.
Output Validation: Uses Pydantic schemas for all structured outputs. The system defines exactly what structure it expects and enforces that structure at the generation level, eliminating JSON parsing errors.
Decision Bots Architecture
The evidence-building system uses modular decision bots. Each bot has a specific job and runs independently:
MorphologiesBot
Paused — v3.0 rebuildGenerates grammatical parsing for every Hebrew and Greek word. Paused in v2.5 after systematic accuracy failures; scholarly-grade external data is serving users while the bot is rebuilt with the same multi-stage verification the translation pipeline uses (candidate generation, judge review, audit artifacts). Scheduled to return in v3.0.
ProperNamesBot
Builds a comprehensive database of every person, place, and divine name in Scripture.
KeywordConsistencyBot
Tracks how key theological terms get translated across different contexts.
AmbiguityBot
Flags passages where the source text is genuinely unclear so the system can document translation choices.
The architecture is modular - you can run individual bots on specific books or chapters. You can add new bots without touching the core pipeline. Each bot saves its results to a separate JSON file.
Key-Term Policy
The tetragrammaton (YHWH) and its variants are standardized to "the LORD" in small-caps during the name standardization step. The Hebrew term Adonai is rendered as "Lord" in title-case. Compound names like "YHWH God" become "the LORD God." This follows the convention used by ESV, NIV, NASB, and KJV.
The name standardization step ensures consistent rendering of proper names throughout the translation (people, places, divine titles) according to modern English Bible conventions.
The AI was instructed to preserve the original Hebrew and Greek idioms, translating them literally or with their most traditional English equivalent (e.g., "Gird up your loins" in Job 38:3; "my horn is exalted" in Psalm 92:10).
Ancient units of measurement, weight, and currency are transliterated directly into the text (e.g., "cubits," "shekels," "denarius"). No in-text conversions or footnotes are provided.
Transparency & Audit Trail
Complete Transparency: Every verse in the APB reader includes access to:
- • The source text (Hebrew or Greek)
- • The literal translation with standardized names
- • The polished translation for natural English readability
- • Polishing reasoning explaining what syntactic changes were made and why
- • All translation candidates generated by the AI with their rationales
The JSON artifact file generated for each pericope serves as a complete record of the entire four-step translation pipeline, preserving all candidates, decisions, and reasoning for scholarly review.
Version History
Version 2.5 (Current) — Morphology Interim. v2.5 is not a translation change. The translation pipeline, name standardization, and syntax polishing described under Version 2.0 remain unchanged. What changed is the morphological analysis layer — the per-word parsing, lemma assignment, and glosses that power the Original Language section of Scholarly reports and the per-word overlay in the Bible Reader. This is an interim stabilization while MorphologiesBot is rebuilt with the same verification rigor the translation pipeline uses.
What went wrong. MorphologiesBot was a single AI pass over every verse, without the verification gates used elsewhere in the project. On scholarly review, the output had systemic problems:
- A single default verb tag (VERB,q,a,l,P,e — "Qal Active Participle 3rd Sg") appeared 4,859 times across four sampled OT books. It was being emitted as a silent fallback whenever the bot failed to classify a form, causing almost every verb to decode as a participle regardless of its actual conjugation.
- Inflected forms were routinely linked to the wrong base lemma. יִדּוֹד (yidod, "he will flee") was tagged as the lemma דוד ("David"). יָנוּד (yanud, "will wander/grieve") was tagged as נוד and glossed as "Nod" — the proper-noun homograph.
- Pronominal suffixes were stripped from host words and dropped entirely. מִמֵּךְ, לָהּ, and לָךְ all lost their 2fs / 3fs / 2fs suffixes and rendered as bare prepositions.
- Multiple tag-encoding schemes coexisted in the same file (NOUN,c,sg,m, N-MS, NOUN,m,sg,m, N-CS) — evidence of multiple tagger runs or format drift that was never reconciled.
- Glosses were LLM-generated and context-blind, so homographs received one arbitrary meaning without regard for the verse.
The morphology layer was missing the verification the translation pipeline has by design.
The translation pipeline uses five candidates, a judge, name standardization, a polisher, and complete audit artifacts. Morphology tagging was shipped as a single AI pass without any of those gates. Now that the failure mode is concrete and documented, the same pattern of candidate generation, independent review, and audit trail can be built for linguistic tagging.
The interim fix. v2.5 pauses MorphologiesBot and serves users peer-reviewed external data that is already used by reference tools across the field, so the Original Language section is trustworthy immediately:
OpenScriptures Hebrew Bible
Westminster Leningrad Codex with per-word Enhanced Strong's lemmas and OSM morphology. CC-BY 4.0.
MorphGNT / SBLGNT
SBL Greek New Testament with per-word Robinson-style parsing (person, tense, voice, mood, case, number, gender, degree). CC-BY 4.0 (text) + CC-BY-SA (morphology).
STEPBible TBESH / TBESG
Tyndale-edited Translators Brief Extended Strong's lexicons. Per-lemma transliteration, gloss, and grammatical category. CC-BY.
What this does not change. The translation remains the APB's own work. The base texts (WLC, SBLGNT), the blind-translator pipeline, the judge, name standardization, and syntax polishing are unchanged. Every verse the reader reads is still the APB's translation.
What comes next — v3.0. MorphologiesBot will return with the same multi-stage verification the translation pipeline uses: multiple independent parsing candidates per word, a judge pass that evaluates against lexical and grammatical constraints, lemma disambiguation that considers context rather than defaulting to the most common homograph, and a complete audit trail for every tagging decision. The lessons from v2.5 — silent fallbacks hiding failures, stripped suffixes, context-blind glosses — become explicit things the rebuilt pipeline must catch. v3.0 is planned; until then, v2.5 serves users accurate data without pretending it is in-house work.
Attribution. Every rendering of the Original Language and Morphology section carries a footer crediting OSHB, MorphGNT/SBLGNT, and STEPBible in accordance with their CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licenses. When v3.0 replaces these with verified in-house output, the attribution will be updated to reflect APB-generated data.
v2.5 is a candid correction and a staging step. The goal has not changed: in-house morphological analysis at scholarly quality. v2.5 tells users what they are reading today and sets the specification for v3.0 to meet.
Questions?
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