
Show HN: Minimal Reader for the ESV Bible, Written in Janet - jonstaab
https://github.com/staab/esv
======
camjohnson26
One thing that bothers me about modern Christianity is that I don’t think
Christian Bibles or worship songs should be copyrighted. I understand why they
feel the need to protect their work but it seems like that work should be
funded with donations and not by restricting how many verses of the Bible a
person can copy at a time, which according to the license you included is what
the ESV Bible requires.

Cool project though, I like the idea of being able to read the Bible without
accidentally pressing play on an audio version.

~~~
flounders
I think a lot of Christians haven't thought about that. Translating the Bible
takes a lot of work. The work on the ESV started in the early 1990s from what
I could find on Wikipedia, so we're talking about 7-11 years of work before it
was published. I don't know how well donations would cover those costs.

So I think a lenient copyright would be fine such as it expires in 30 years at
the most and it allows for copying whole chapters but perhaps not whole books.
Even with current copyright restrictions the only people that are impacted are
authors using lengthy direct quotes, but with allowing whole chapters to be
included that shouldn't be an issue. I would be for a shorter copyright term,
but it does take time for new translations to be adopted.

------
lytedev
This is great! Hadn't heard of this API before. I was just tinkering with a
small Bible cli in bash using time TSV-formatted Bible data, but now I think
I'll just check this out!

------
jamestomasino
Very nice. I love the ESV translation. If you're into minimal Bible versions
and old-school protocols, here's my ESV Bible on gopher:

gopher://gopher.black/1/bible

~~~
alexellisuk
How can I access that?

~~~
alexellisuk
"curl gopher://gopher.black/1/bible/Jonah/jonah-1.txt"

"echo -n /bible/Jonah/jonah-1.txt | nc gopher.black 70"

Very cool ^

------
qwerty456127
Looks nice yet I feel like reading the Bible or whatever alike in a single
translation makes little sense. IMHO viewing the originals + all the possible
translations for every word + a number of translations to a number of
languages in parallel is a must if you want to know what was actually written
there. G-d bless.

~~~
steve19
A translation is basically offloading all that to a team of scholars.

Other religious books may have been standardized so you can't compare
different versions, but that does not diminish the versions studied today.

~~~
jorangreef
"A translation is basically offloading all that to a team of scholars."

Especially a brilliant translation like the ESV.

For example, Peter J. Williams ([https://www.crossway.org/authors/peter-j-
williams/](https://www.crossway.org/authors/peter-j-williams/)) is just one of
the PHDs who worked on the ESV Translation Oversight Committee. I once
listened to a talk Peter gave at St Helens' Bishopsgate ([https://www.st-
helens.org.uk/resources/talk/51892/audio/](https://www.st-
helens.org.uk/resources/talk/51892/audio/)) on how translating has improved
his confidence in the textual reliability of the manuscripts. I've never heard
someone speak so well before.

It's true that reading more than one translation helps, but I find that even
just reading a formal equivalence translation such as the ESV, together with a
dynamic equivalence transalation such as the old NIV, will get you 98% of the
way there, and there are commentaries to help with the rest.

It would be a real shame to never read the Bible in your mother tongue, when
so many translators have sacrificed so much to make that possible, simply
because one feels it can't be understood unless "you read it in a 100
languages". I think the question then becomes, well, do I want to read and
truly understand, am I open-minded or am I just filibustering?

~~~
bluGill
Best is reading the originals directly. As I recall the bible is written in 5
languages, so learn those 5 to fluency and read that. Since most of us don't
have the time to learn 5 languages well enough to understand subtle details we
rely on translations.

~~~
speeder
Problem is... we DON'T have the originals.

Something few people know:

The greek translation of the old testament, might be more accurate than the
hebrew version.

The reason is that the complete hebrew version we have (I mean, ignoring
fragments found in archeological digs recently), was written about 700 years
after Jesus, by a group of people that were strongly biased against the idea
that Jesus was the Messiah, also their version has explicit editor notes, and
commentary, and obvious errors (for example "alphabetic" psalms that are
missing letters, while the greek translation still have them).

Some of my favourite translations are ones that did research to find what was
probably closest to originals, instead of reliance on the language of
manuscripts, there are even some ethiopian texts (in ethiopian language!) that
are reputed to be more reliable than more recent texts that are supposed to be
copies of originals in original language.

~~~
jorangreef
"Problem is... we DON'T have the originals."

That's a common misunderstanding of textual criticism, when it comes to the
Bible, often peddled by pop-scholars writing for the masses, who make out that
the sheer number of minor textual variants is a major stumbling block in
getting back to the original text.

On the contrary, the more copies you have, the better. It's the same with
Google, you hope they make thousands of backups, and at different points in
time.

With textual criticism, you don't need the originals if you have thousands of
copies to compare, in different languages.

Likewise with ancient history, you don't need to have been there, to know that
an event happened in the past.

I would encourage you to read people like Bruce M. Metzger, F.F. Bruce, or
Paul Barnett if you want to understand the logic of ancient history and
textual criticism, or if you want to balance your perspective.

~~~
flounders
I found this paper by Maurice A. Robinson very informative on the subject, but
he does advocate for Byzantine priority.
[http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol06/Robinson2001.html](http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol06/Robinson2001.html)
At the very least it's a good introduction to New Testament textual criticism,
and it goes further in depth on your points.

------
swlkr
Whoa this is really cool. I've seen janet on HN a few times now!

It's a pretty great language

------
nyxtom
Yea the ESV API is really cool. Thanks for the share

------
seiko988
I had this idea two days ago, but to do it with Douay-Rheims. Then I fiddled
around and came to the conclusion that my laptop is too bright for heavy
reading even with white text on black background. Maybe an OLED laptop would
alleviate eye strain for long reading at night, can anyone confirm?

~~~
all2
Can confirm. Since the first Galaxy, all Samsung Galaxy phones have had OLED
screens. I frequently read in absolute dark and eye-strain is not an issue
(especially with the red light filter).

------
twhitbeck
I've long had the dream of a bible app that functions like Google Photos. One
scrollbar, top is Genesis, bottom is Revelation. I've given it some thought,
but haven't written any code yet. @jonstaab is that something you'd be
interested in collaborating on?

Edit: fix typo in name

~~~
jonstaab
That wouldn't be too hard, though you'll have to take a different approach to
loading the content than I did here.

I made this project for myself, so I'd be unlikely to use much else for
reading/quick reference, but if you find the xode helpful, you're welcome to
dork it! You migh also check out: [https://www.notion.so/About-Theographic-
bb40cb93b1ac43bd9825...](https://www.notion.so/About-Theographic-
bb40cb93b1ac43bd98252abce225d530)

------
triangleman
Really responsive, smooth interface. Great work.

------
alexellisuk
Thank you for publishing this example, it looks great. I noticed that it works
with Heroku, would you be open to trying it on OpenFaaS Cloud using the free
Community Cluster?

It should be easier to use than Heroku and you can encrypt your API keys using
SealedSecrets too.

Reach out? alex@openfaas.com

[https://github.com/openfaas/community-
cluster/tree/master/do...](https://github.com/openfaas/community-
cluster/tree/master/docs)

~~~
alexellisuk
Looking at your Dockerfile, wouldn't a multi-stage build be more efficient?
[https://github.com/staab/esv/blob/master/Dockerfile](https://github.com/staab/esv/blob/master/Dockerfile)

[https://docs.docker.com/develop/develop-images/multistage-
bu...](https://docs.docker.com/develop/develop-images/multistage-build/)

------
chris_wot
I've always wanted a Bible without verse numbers.

~~~
jeremymcanally
They actually publish a few like that now (an ESV version included actually I
think). It’s my favorite way to read it.

~~~
DizzyDoo
In case anyone is wondering what to google, they're called "Reader's Bibles".

------
pimlottc
I see a header with a search box and the rest of the page is blank. Chrome
78.0.3904.70

Console: (index):247 Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Cannot read property
'length' of undefined at search ((index):247) search @ (index):247 async
function (async) search @ (index):245 (anonymous) @ (index):130

~~~
jonstaab
Yep, looks like I got rate-limited. Good old HN hug of death. I've just added
a caching layer, so maybe it'll recover soon.

Edit: should be good now.

------
sdegutis
Awesome. Any chance it can have an option for using other translations? Big
fan of RSVCE personally.

~~~
MandieD
The biggest limit is availability of a good API; I couldn't find any for the
RSV or NRSV.

------
ngcc_hk
Is this (janet) a lisp interpreter ?

~~~
jboynyc
You can find details on the language here: [https://janet-
lang.org/](https://janet-lang.org/)

------
RandomTisk
If I scroll up to/past Luke 21, it goes blank with "No results found". Firefox
70.0.1. I like the minimalist style though.

~~~
jonstaab
Probably the rate limiting thing, I kicked their leaky bucket pretty hard.

------
chooseaname
Refreshingly simple. Well done.

------
ipstone2014
awesome! I used to use emacs with an api key to read ESV, this is nice.

------
RickJWagner
I like the ESV API, hadn't seen that before.

Thanks, author.

------
paggle
I don’t have a problem with people finding comfort or something of value in
religion, but also don’t think that a rationalist community like HN should
assist in promulgating religion any further into society than it already is.

~~~
veddox
"HN" isn't promulgating anything. Jonstaab has shown us a side project, which
is a) written in an interesting new language and b) may be of use to the many
religious people that are a part of our community.

------
laurentoget
The fact that there is an API to publish verse by verse the text of one book,
i.e. a handful of megabytes uncompressed, is interesting.

The fact that this book happens to be a book of which there is a copy in every
hotel room makes it a bit paradoxical.

The fact that this book is the scripture for a religion which considers usury
a capital sin makes it the best example of artificial scarcity i can think of.

~~~
jonstaab
In one sense, they're not copyrighting the Bible itself, just the years of
scholarly and commercial work that was put into making the ESV. Paul (and
Deuteronomy) says "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain".

On the other hand, it's hard to argue that Bible publishers' spammy
newsletters and aggressive copyright protection amount to much more than
Simony.

~~~
smitty1e
I had never heard of this translation, tending KJV myself.

The idea that people wish to be compensated for spiritual effort is perfectly
capitalist. I may need to take a look. But if the tone of the ESV resembles
the NIV, the ESV may be lacking bass in the mix for my taste.

You just can't improve on Ecclesiastes in the KJV:

"Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made
crooked?"

[https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/ecc/7/13/s_666013](https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/ecc/7/13/s_666013)

~~~
jorangreef
Ecclesiastes is powerful in any human language, and belongs to the whole
world, every nation, tribe and tongue. It would be a mistake to make it the
sole property and possession of the KJV:

"Siehe an die Werke Gottes; denn wer kann das schlicht machen, was er krümmt?"

"Aanmerk het werk Gods; want wie kan recht maken, dat Hij krom gemaakt heeft?"

"Regarde l'oeuvre de Dieu: qui pourra redresser ce qu'il a courbé?"

~~~
Freak_NL
Honestly, in Dutch (the second quote you posted) that phrasing will leave few
impressed with the text due to its extremely archaic formulation and the
pompous capitalisation of that god's pronouns (which is kind of modern in a
sense, but surely not quite what the authors intended).

A better translation that will be more readily understood by readers of Dutch
born in the last 70 years reads:

„Bezie het werk van God: wie maakt recht wat hij krom heeft gemaakt?”

~~~
jorangreef
Thanks! I am second-generation Dutch living in South Africa. I speak
Afrikaans, so that translation sounded fine to me. Your translation does sound
much more flowing.

I hope my point still stands, that what's important ultimately in Ecclesiastes
is not so much any superficial style or dialect, but the substance being
conveyed.

Of course, Ecclesiastes is full of beautiful poetry, and I appreciate it on
that level, but the book is my favorite because of the ideas and lessons being
taught, which I think transcend language and culture.

~~~
Freak_NL
Not my translation of course, this one is the NBV (Nieuwe Bijbelvertaling)
from 2004.

------
ykevinator
It's immoral to teach your kids anti-science truth or co-science truth. There
is one truth, scientific truth, and you should pause before beginning the
process of teaching your kid that there are optional, comfort based co-science
truths. Having said that, it's neat reader.

~~~
gwd
> It's immoral to teach your kids anti-science truth or co-science truth.

You mean "co-science" truths such as... morality?

Or to take it one step at a time:

* You have proposed a moral precept.

* By attempting to apply it to people who clearly disagree with it, you imply that this moral precept is an objective truth -- that like physics and math, it applies to everyone whether they like it or not (as opposed to personal preferences or conventions such as whether to drive on the right or left-hand side of the road)

* But science itself does not deal in moral precepts. Therefore, the moral precept you propose would count as "co-science".

* So if you teach your kids any morality, then you are violating the moral precept you propose.

~~~
ubertaco
One step further: the moral precept proposed violates itself, if it's ever
applied, by virtue of being a moral precept (and thus being a "co-science"
truth claim).

