Scripture API?

Is there any potential for a scripture API for third party applications? Something the Mormon Documentation Project where developers can innovate using Church-sponsored material.

For example, MDP was used by Stewart Foss to create ScriptureTag.

I'd love to see something integrated along the lines of BYU's project to link together General Conference addresses, but also have options to correlate other content from approved third party developers.

As one example, I'd love to be able to cross-reference the Jesus the Christ concordance I created, along with other Church-approved literature for easy research.

This could be something similar to the layering function in Google Earth, where with a basic data display (the map), you can display additional layers at your discretion (e.g. Google Earth Community, National Geographic, Wikimapia, etc.)

We are looking into providing some scripture API's to the online scripture reference. I like your analogy of the Google Earth experience. I think that would be very cool!

Tom

I have some ideas for scripture study journal software that could probably integrate well with the API's, but it is too long to post here. How to I share my idea?

Following up on my previous suggestions, I think it'd also be sweet to harness the various languages the online scriptures are in and allow side-by-side perusal such as is done at ScriptureText. This would be a good experiment for people trying to learn new languages by using the word of God, similar to the intentions of Bookslinger, or John Groberg's experience in Tonga.

I'd say start the discussions here by giving an overview of what you are thinking and let people start to ask questions.

Tom

I like the side-by-side languages idea, and not just English/Spanish, but like German/French too. That way, not only could one learn the language, but missionaries that know they are going to learn a language other than their own, and not just from English to whatever, can actually familiarize themselves wth what is in the Triple.

With the Church growing in languages other than English, and the distinct possibility that we will have missionaries learning languages other than English that speak natively languages other than English, this could prove invaluable to them.

A scriptures-based API is a splendid idea. Thumbs up.

tebbs wrote:I have some ideas for scripture study journal software that could probably integrate well with the API's, but it is too long to post here. How to I share my idea?

Because my thoughts are so long I put them over in the ideas and suggestions section under Software Study Journal. I'd think that something could be developed so that the online scripture could interacte with someone's study journal software to display their comments/cross references and maybe display other people's comments too. That's a great idea you have with the scripture API.

Love it! With API's the possibilities are endless.

Could someone define API for me. I guess I have an idea of what it is by visiting the website references left by cboyack. However, I would like to know what it stands for exactly. Thank you.

There is a page that will have the acronyms that are used, though since I don't know if that is up yet, API means Application Program Interface. It short it is a set of routines that are provided to the public to interface with a program. In the terms of a website, the routines are usually GET or POST data that the program will send to the server. The results are usually returned as an XML file.

An example let us say there was a website that had an API to find anyone.
You would connect to the server with your program and send
you would receive in return
This allows 3rd party applications that can access the web to use the website as their database and since XML is a very strict, it is a lot easier for a computer to parse.

An API for a program is a set of public functions that can interact with the program. Example your calendar program most likely has an API which gives access to a method "post_event" so
This would add an event to your calendar on 1/22/2007 from 8 to 10pm that is the techtalk at the Provo Stake Center.

So in short an API is a set of methods that connect to an Application and read/modify it's internal data.

eldercurtis wrote:Could someone define API for me. I guess I have an idea of what it is by visiting the website references left by cboyack. However, I would like to know what it stands for exactly. Thank you.

From Wikipedia article:[INDENT]"An application programming interface (API) is a source code interface that a computer system or program library provides in order to support requests for services to be made of it by a computer program."
[/INDENT]Tom

JamesAnderson wrote:I like the side-by-side languages idea, and not just English/Spanish, but like German/French too. That way, not only could one learn the language, but missionaries that know they are going to learn a language other than their own, and not just from English to whatever, can actually familiarize themselves wth what is in the Triple.

With the Church growing in languages other than English, and the distinct possibility that we will have missionaries learning languages other than English that speak natively languages other than English, this could prove invaluable to them.

The LDS Scriptures CD does exactly that ... I love it. It seems that the same application could be extended to the web paradigm as well, making it available to a much wider audience.

I just created a [thread=182]thread[/thread] that references a document we just published about the Scriptures URL specification. Enjoy!

Tom

It would be nice to see an API come out that supported
JSON, along with an XML option . . .

I have been using JSON in my projects and love that
it is so easy to process via javascript! Not to mention
how lite it is. I had been having serious issues processing
XML in a timely fashion that I doubt I could ever go back.

Just a another possibility.

Zach

For those looking for a Scripture application idea, take a look at Elder David A. Bednar's talk at the Feb 4th CES fireside. Scroll down a little over half way until you find the paragraph that starts with "If you promise not to laugh, I will tell you about one of the simple ways I search for scriptural themes."

It certainly sounds like a idea ripe for implementation electronically rather then colored pencils and scissors.

RussellHltn wrote:For those looking for a Scripture application idea, take a look at Elder David A. Bednar's talk at the Feb 4th CES fireside. Scroll down a little over half way until you find the paragraph that starts with "If you promise not to laugh, I will tell you about one of the simple ways I search for scriptural themes."

It certainly sounds like a idea ripe for implementation electronically rather then colored pencils and scissors.

That would make for a really neat scripture study experience (especially having the help of an application/website with a well done interface). I imagine it could be just as interactive as doing the paper method Elder Bednar used, but results would be produced much quicker.

I drag and drop type of approach into seperate piles are and auto-cut which just goes after anything you've marked in that color. A verse are a part of the verse. Anyway I think it would be a great idea. Anyone up to making an open source project? (Could be tied into [thread=113]the Scripture Study Program[/thread])

mkmurray wrote:That would make for a really neat scripture study experience

I think it would be neat to allow that on the results of a search. That way you can have the program help you find the passages that you categorize.

I think one of the great advantages to doing it electronically is that each quote maintains it's identity. You won't have to scribble on each slip of paper what book and chapter it came from. It can also maintain it's footnotes and other links.

Is it possible to put offline scriptures on a Samsung Blackjack yet? If not, how long will it be until that happens?

We moved your original post over to [thread=229]this thread[/thread] about the samsung blackjack. The answers should be posted there.

Tom W.,

Since an open source scripture study program isn't going to be built directly on top of the current scripture display, will there be an API where the html (italics, links, etc.) for a particular verse or its footnotes can be obtained?

Thanks.

mkmurray wrote:Tom W.,

Since an open source scripture study program isn't going to be built directly on top of the current scripture display, will there be an API where the html (italics, links, etc.) for a particular verse or its footnotes can be obtained?

Thanks.

Currently there are no plans to provide that. However there is discussion about providing an API to the online scriptures where you could extract what ever information you needed. However, that has not been approved as of yet and could take some time to get approved, if it ever does at all.

Tom

tomw wrote:Currently there are no plans to provide that. However there is discussion about providing an API to the online scriptures where you could extract what ever information you needed. However, that has not been approved as of yet and could take some time to get approved, if it ever does at all.

Tom

How would you suggest obtaining scriptural text and footnotes until then? Is there a legit way of obtaining that without breaking any copyrights or privacy policies of the Church?

mkmurray wrote:How would you suggest obtaining scriptural text and footnotes until then? Is there a legit way of obtaining that without breaking any copyrights or privacy policies of the Church?

I don't have an answer for you right now. I'll keep everyone updated as the discussions progress around an API.

Tom

tomw wrote:I don't have an answer for you right now. I'll keep everyone updated as the discussions progress around an API.

Tom

So I heard from a friend about a group at BYU that are trying to build a Mac desktop app to study the scriptures. It appears that they have done a little research and the scripture content can't be redistributed, so the solution is to have the app download the scripture content locally for every user. The terms and policies of the scriptures allow each user to download, copy, and print scripture content for personal use.

I wrote a little C# application that downloads all of the content pages off of scriptures.lds.org. It's about 100 MB for the whole site. However, the links on each page still point online. When I was at BYU, I wrote a Web Cloner in C++ that would download all content of a site and change the links to all be local. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find that code, but I would prefer to use a program like that to get the scripture content so as to keep the linking structures in place between pages.

Thoughts, everyone? Anyone else also write the Web Cloner (in case I can't find mine)?

It appears I found a colleague that still had their Web Cloner; I'm gonna give that a try in addition to the little app I wrote.

mkmurray wrote:so the solution is to have the app download the scripture content locally for every user. The terms and policies of the scriptures allow each user to download, copy, and print scripture content for personal use.

That's the way some of the PDA version of the scriptures are handled - the user downloads and converts them using the supplied application. What's slick is they've done it so that you can do it for any of the things on the church website - so you're not limited to the scriptures.

mkmurray wrote:I wrote a little C# application that downloads all of the content pages off of scriptures.lds.org. It's about 100 MB for the whole site. However, the links on each page still point online. When I was at BYU, I wrote a Web Cloner in C++ that would download all content of a site and change the links to all be local. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find that code, but I would prefer to use a program like that to get the scripture content so as to keep the linking structures in place between pages.

Thoughts, everyone? Anyone else also write the Web Cloner (in case I can't find mine)?

Have you tried the 'wget' program commonly available on Linux and other Unix-like systems? The man page is pretty long, but I think I saw some stuff in there about retargeting links for just such an application.

Oh, the actual scriptural content in plain text form is only about 7.5MB, excluding footnotes and other stuff. I got my copy from the floppy-based product the Church used to distribute, after a little expansion of the weak compression scheme on the floppies. Piped chains of 'grep' commands to find verses with combinations of words are nearly instantaneous.

rmrichesjr wrote:Have you tried the 'wget' program commonly available on Linux and other Unix-like systems? The man page is pretty long, but I think I saw some stuff in there about retargeting links for just such an application.

Oh, the actual scriptural content in plain text form is only about 7.5MB, excluding footnotes and other stuff. I got my copy from the floppy-based product the Church used to distribute, after a little expansion of the weak compression scheme on the floppies. Piped chains of 'grep' commands to find verses with combinations of words are nearly instantaneous.

Though I am sure most of us are comfortable with the Linux command line, the common church membership and those that would benefit from this program most likely don't know the difference between bash or DOS. Also I noticed that mkmurray wrote the program in C# which makes it petty much a Windows program for the general populace.

I did find my WebCloner program. And it appears to have trouble with the Online Scriptures site. Almost all of the links are to some folder and an index.html is assumed the page in that directory. In college, I didn't write my code to account for that as I didn't see that as usual. I'll have to dive into the code and modify it a little and try again.

Hmm our test cases did not cover sufficiently, I'll have to talk with Dr. Rodham about that.

thedqs wrote:Hmm our test cases did not cover sufficiently, I'll have to talk with Dr. Rodham about that.

You are/were a TA for CS 240?

mkmurray wrote:You are/were a TA for CS 240?

From just a glance at my code, I'm not sure where my logic is messed up for the link structure the Church uses. Perhaps you have an idea. We should chat via IM or email.

Yes, I am a TA for CS 240 (until the end of this semester) and will most likely return to TAing for CS 240 in the Fall.

As for chatting, do you use Yahoo or MSN?

thedqs wrote:Yes, I am a TA for CS 240 (until the end of this semester) and will most likely return to TAing for CS 240 in the Fall.

As for chatting, do you use Yahoo or MSN?

I'll PM and/or email you. My information is in my profile.

Ok sounds good.

Maybe it has already been suggested but I think that it would be incredibly helpful to put the cross-refernces in simple AJAX-type call so that someone could mouse over them and see them instantly instead of clicking and leaving the page. There is not quick back button here also, I know "Show Verse in Context" takes you back after viewing the footnotes but I think the mouse over would be easier and you could still include a click to full page view in the pop-up.

I think that would be a huge enhancement.

For those stumbling on this thread, there is now a current XML/JSON API for the scriptures, and the rest of the gospel library. Here is the thread

crolse wrote:For those stumbling on this thread, there is now a current XML/JSON API for the scriptures, and the rest of the gospel library. Here is the thread

That very long thread doesn't have a link to any publicly usable API for "the scriptures and the rest of the gospel library". There's a reference to http://tech.lds.org/wiki/Gospel_Library_Web_Service in this post, but that article clearly states that this API is to be used only "by official LDS Church applications." There's also a reference to a scriptures-only API in this post, but that API only uses public-domain versions of the scriptures, and thus will not have the rich content (footnotes, etc.) of the LDS versions of the scriptures, and certainly won't give access to the rest of the gospel library.

So which API are you referring to?

Hi Cboyack-p40! I think your idea is awesome. From a development/programming perspective how difficult do you think it would be to install a Google translate API as well as API's that woudl let users compare for example: "faith," or "death" i the LDS scriptures as well as the apocrypha, pseudipigrapha, Koran, Buddhist and Hindu scriptures as well?

jeremybates wrote:Hi Cboyack-p40! I think your idea is awesome.

I really doubt that Cboyack-p40 will respond -- his last post on this forum was over 8 years ago. But I suppose it's possible that someone else will be interested in this topic and respond.

Got here looking for a "Scripture of the day" API I can use in a home assistant dashboard I'm building. I'm hoping there's an automated way to get the Scripture of the day I get in the gospel library app so I can display it in my dashboard. Any suggestions?

gzapata wrote: Sat Jan 03, 2026 9:10 am Got here looking for a "Scripture of the day" API I can use in a home assistant dashboard I'm building. I'm hoping there's an automated way to get the Scripture of the day I get in the gospel library app so I can display it in my dashboard. Any suggestions?

This is so funny, but we just started up a new conversation about this over on Discord: https://discord.com/channels/1232109984 ... 4117166103