📖 Read it now: theonize.github.io/charis
Charis is an open-source Bible translation built the way engineers build systems: every original-language word maps to exactly one English word, everywhere it occurs — no more saints here and holy ones there for the same Hebrew word. Where English blurs, we transliterate: Yahweh, Elohim, El, shalom — words the church already speaks. Every rendering decision is recorded with its rationale, applied by deterministic tooling, checked by machine-verified invariants, and published in version control. The diff history is the translation's apparatus.
- Lexically equivalent — one lemma, one rendering, canon-wide
- Canonically consistent — echoes and quotations survive translation
- Precise over familiar — the exact word, even when it costs fifty cents
- Radically transparent — every choice is a commit you can read, question, and fork
Side-by-side English and original-language reading in the web app. How it's governed: docs/. How it's built: docs/TOOLING.md.
- Open-Source Bible Translation
- Augment Bible study through clarity and consistency of meaning
- Normalize word translations and leave the interpretation to the student
- Use transliterals where is makes sense- Christians already have a vernacular...lets use it
- Leverage version control tech to give both dependability and visibility to the process
- Simple, easily parsable structure avoiding tradition baggage
Original language words that are loanable are transliterated.
- Hebrew transliteration is done via a revised Michigan/Claremont mapping that is more ASCII friendly
- Greek transliteration is done via the mapping below.
- e.g. Yahweh; well-known enough to understandable as the name God gives Hisself
- e.g. Shalom; recognizable enough to have meaning on its own Preserve the original spellings as much as possible. Try not to use the same English word for multiple original.
In the interest of making a highly readable translation: transliterated words are are as clean as possible while preserving the original spelling. In general we go letter-for-letter except where there is none, then its pairs of letters.
| Hebrew | Transangled |
|---|---|
| א | a |
| ב | b |
| ג | g |
| ד | d |
| ה | h |
| ו | v |
| ז | z |
| ח | kh |
| ט | t |
| י | y |
| כ | k |
| ל | l |
| מ | m |
| נ | n |
| ס | s |
| ע | ` |
| פ | p |
| צ | ts |
| ק | q |
| ר | r |
| ש | sh |
| ת | t |
| Greek | Transangled |
|---|---|
| Α α | a |
| Β β | b |
| Γ γ | g |
| Δ δ | d |
| Ε ε | e |
| Ζ ζ | z |
| Η η | ē |
| Θ θ | th |
| Ι ι | i |
| Κ κ | k |
| Λ λ | l |
| Μ μ | m |
| Ν ν | n |
| Ξ ξ | x |
| Ο ο | o |
| Π π | p |
| Ρ ρ | r |
| Σ σ/ς | s |
| Τ τ | t |
| Υ υ | y |
| Φ φ | ph |
| Χ χ | ch |
| Ψ ψ | ps |
| Ω ω | u |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
