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I am aware of a number of partial or complete English translations of Tana"ch online, but I am wondering if there are any I am unaware of, especially that fulfill the following criteria:

  1. Precision of translation (the more the better)
  2. Copyability (no tables, strange HTML formatting, etc.)
  3. Freedom (as in beer)
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I used the technology tag because #2 is at least as important as #1. – WAF♦ Jul 15 '11 at 20:03
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Rabbi Kaplan's translation of the chamisha chumshe Tora is online. I'm not posting this as an answer, however, as it fails criterion 1 terribly: The translation is great, but not precise (assuming you mean "literal") at all. – msh210♦ Jul 15 '11 at 20:13
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@msh210 Right, it fails on that one, but it is good to see that that resource exists anyway! – WAF♦ Jul 15 '11 at 20:17
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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

"Look Higher" - also a non-Jewish site - has the Leeser Bible, the first complete Jewish translation of Tanach that's faithful to our tradition. It's not very good on the "copyability" front, though, since each chapter is a separate file.

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But that said, within each chapter there is no markup other than line breaks and numbers. – WAF♦ Jul 17 '11 at 20:49
The link is no longer good. – Double AA May 4 at 6:30
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up vote 1 down vote

Unfortunately, the two best websites for getting english translations are not Jewish in origin.

http://bible.cc/genesis/1-1.htm

and

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1%3A1&version=YLT;NIV;NASB

But it is hard to deny that they fit all of your criteria.

Biblegateway might win because of its search features and multple layouts which you can get results, and you can see large sections of text at a time if you wish such as this: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=YLT

In general, in biblegatway, "Young's Literal translation" will most likely match the Jewish translation better than the others.

Breslov.com also has the JPS translation, which is supposed to be fairly accurate. But it's navigation is a bit lacking. http://www.breslov.com/bible/

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Re Young's Literal Translation - There is a telling passage on the Wikipedia page devoted thereto: "If a translation gives a present tense when the original gives a past, or a past when it has a present... it is clear that verbal inspiration is as much overlooked as if it had no existence." This, and oddities like translating the first instance of ברא as "preparation" give me pause. But he did write a concordance, so who am I to judge? – WAF♦ Jul 17 '11 at 13:08
All translations are bad, Young just seems the least Christian. – avi Jul 17 '11 at 14:12
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