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Open Scriptorium

Downloads & API

The entire corpus is freely available for download and programmatic access. Every work carries its own license; check the /api/v1/works endpoint or the works index for per-work license details.

Bulk downloads

SQLite database

A self-contained SQLite database with the full corpus: all works, verses, cross-references, word data, and notes. Regenerated periodically after new imports.

Download SQLite

CSV exports

Per-work verse exports (one CSV per work) plus a combined cross-references file. Useful for spreadsheets, R, Python, or any tool that reads CSV.

REST API

All endpoints return JSON. No authentication required. Rate limited to 60 requests per minute. This server has finite bandwidth, so please be considerate. The base URL is:

https://openscriptorium.org/api/v1/

List all works

GET /api/v1/works

Returns every work in the corpus with its metadata, license, language, traditions, and feature flags.

Work detail with book listing

GET /api/v1/works/:slug

Example: /api/v1/works/bsb returns the BSB metadata plus a list of all books (canonical works) with verse counts.

Verses (chapter or single verse)

GET /api/v1/works/:work/:book/:chapter
GET /api/v1/works/:work/:book/:chapter/:verse

Returns verse text, notes, and markup for a chapter or single verse. Examples:

  • /api/v1/works/bsb/genesis/1 — BSB Genesis 1
  • /api/v1/works/kjv/matthew/5/3 — KJV Matthew 5:3
  • /api/v1/works/wlc/genesis/1 — WLC Genesis 1 (Hebrew)
  • /api/v1/works/bavli/berakhot/2 — Gemara Berakhot daf 2

Cross-references

GET /api/v1/cross-references?book=:book&chapter=:ch&verse=:v

Returns all cross-references whose source overlaps the given passage. The verse parameter is optional; omitting it returns cross-references for the entire chapter. Limited to 500 results.

  • /api/v1/cross-references?book=genesis&chapter=1&verse=1
  • /api/v1/cross-references?book=berakhot&chapter=2&verse=1 — Talmud xrefs (daf=chapter, segment=verse)

Full-text search

GET /api/v1/search?q=:query&work=:slug&limit=:n

Case-insensitive text search across all works (or a single work if work is specified). Returns up to 100 results (default 25). Examples:

  • /api/v1/search?q=in+the+beginning
  • /api/v1/search?q=logos&work=nestle1904

Licensing

Each work in the corpus has its own license (Public Domain, CC BY-SA, etc.). The /api/v1/works endpoint includes license details for every work. If you redistribute data from this API, you must comply with the license of each work you include. Most works are Public Domain; those that require attribution have attribution_required: true in their license object.

The API itself and the Open Scriptorium source code are available under the ISC License.

Feedback

Bug reports, feature requests, and API suggestions are welcome on the issue tracker or the mailing list.