A modern scholarly Bible with over 60,000 translator notes — written by twenty biblical scholars and offered freely online from the beginning.
The New English Translation (NET) Bible was conceived in the mid-1990s by Biblical Studies Press and Bible.org as a freely-distributable, scholarly English translation. A team of more than twenty Old and New Testament scholars worked on the first edition, released in beta in 2001 and as a full edition in 2005. A "Second Edition" was released in 2019.
The NET's defining feature is its over 60,000 translator notes — the largest set of footnotes in any modern English Bible. Notes fall into three categories: textual-critical notes (manuscript variants and why one reading was chosen), study notes (background and explanation), and translation notes (why a particular English rendering was used).
Although not strictly public domain, the NET Bible is available with a generous "Free Use" license that permits quoting and redistribution far beyond what most copyrighted Bibles allow.
Balances formal and dynamic equivalence — formal where the source language allows readable English, dynamic where a literal rendering would mislead modern readers.
Works from the most current critical editions of the Hebrew (BHS) and Greek (Nestle-Aland 28th edition) source texts.
Translator notes are integrated into the text rather than relegated to a study-Bible apparatus — they're part of what the translation is.
Hand-picked verses that demonstrate how the NET renders well-known passages.
Bibles that share lineage, philosophy, or canonical structure with the NET — open any to read its history.
A modern, public-domain English Bible — formal in structure, contemporary in vocabulary, freely usable anywhere.
The most literal mainstream English Bible of its era — a scholarly revision of the KJV that informed nearly every modern formal-equivalence translation.
The most influential English Bible in history — formal, rhythmic, public-domain prose used by Christians for over four hundred years.
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