What Is the Common Translation?
The Common English translation provides a readable, word-level rendering for every word in the Old and New Testaments. It is the baseline interlinear translation you see when reading any verse on this site.
Each word was translated using AI-assisted analysis of the original manuscripts, consulting multiple sources to produce a contextual English rendering. For every word, the system consulted:
- Strong's Concordance — lexical root and basic gloss
- BDB Lexicon (Hebrew) / BDAG (Greek) — scholarly definitions
- KJV, ESV, NASB — major English translation renderings for comparison
- Morphological analysis — part of speech, person, gender, number, verbal stem
The result is stored as an audit trail so every translation decision can be verified and traced back to its sources.
Source Manuscripts
| Old Testament | Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) via the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible |
| New Testament | unfoldingWord Greek New Testament (UGNT) |
Coverage
| Hebrew words translated | 0 |
| Greek words translated | 102329 |
| Verses covered | 31171 |
| Words flagged for review | 77171 open flags |
Transparency
Where major English translations diverge on a word's meaning, or where a word is rare or debated among scholars, it is flagged for human review. These flags are publicly visible on the Translation Notes page.
We believe in openness: if we are uncertain about a rendering, you should know. Every flagged word shows the sources consulted, the nature of the disagreement, and whether it has been resolved.