Download the open source Aquifer ACAI Bible study dataset

May 6

Bible scholars use Biblical resources to accurately translate and understand the Bible across languages. The open-source, openly licensed Aquifer Content Architecture for Information (ACAI) from developers of the Aquifer is a machine-actionable dataset that provides rich details behind people, places, and more. ACAI is freely available for anyone who wants to dig deeper into Bible study and translation.

When you listen to someone tell a story, you naturally track several different kinds of information — who, what, when, where, how and why. You determine whether they are individuals or groups. You visualize the location — maybe a place you’ve actually visited, or somewhere relative to an anchor point in the scene.

Think of almost any Bible story — Balaam’s talking donkey and the angel, the woman at the well, Moses and the tablets, the Last Supper. If you’ve studied the Bible, chances are you can immediately recreate the sights, the people, and their environment in your mind, and you’re probably doing it in your heart language — your language of origin — but what if the Bible doesn’t exist in your heart language?

Then, it’s essential that Bible translators and scholars properly track and represent mentions of these people, places and things accurately, and let’s face it, some Bible stories are easier than others. Yet, all are crucial for deeper understanding of God’s truth and promises.

The ACAI dataset from developers of the Aquifer provides these foundational details for the texts of the Bible, free of charge. Instances of named persons and places are being annotated at the word level of the original language sources. The ACAI can be downloaded from GitHub, freely available for anyone who can benefit.

ACAI accounts for people and places known by different names, like Paul, also known as Saul, or Abraham, also known as Abram. It annotates groups (like the Sadducees) and deities (participants in the supernatural realm, like Satan and the archangel Gabriel). Mentions of animals (also known as fauna), plants (also known as flora) and human-made objects (also known as realia) are included. Short descriptions of each named person, place, plant, or animal are provided. These details help translators create a fully-rounded meaning of the passage to allow deeper understanding among readers.

What individuals and groups say is also annotated. While many printed Bibles include the “words of Jesus” in red text, the ACAI data also allows users to determine what people (or donkeys) are recorded as saying. (Curious about this talking donkey? You can read the full story in Numbers, chapter 22.)

The ACAI dataset supports Bibles in multiple languages, and most names are already localized. Plans include making names, descriptions and other details available in all gateway languages.

With the ACAI dataset, scholars, teachers, teams and translators can internalize Biblical texts in a gateway language, retell stories in their native languages, and better communicate Scripture’s meaning.

We invite you to check out the ACAI on GitHub. We would love to hear your feedback!