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I am in the midst of creating a media project. The content is 'religion'. There is a publicly distributable set of 4 documents in XML format (programmer speak for a document that can easily be transformed into other document types - e.g. text, Word docs or HTML). My project will be based around HTML.

The 4 documents include:

  • Jewish Scripture
  • Christian Scripture
  • The Quran
  • The Book of Mormon.

I would like to include an English translation of the Torah.

Is there a freely distributable electronic form of the Torah available in English?

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  • Andrew, Welcome to Judaism.SE, and thanks very much for bringing your question here! I also appreciate your turning specifically to a Jewish translation for the Hebrew Bible. Sorry, but we don't like multiple questions in one. I encourage you to ask your second question separately. (It's an interesting one, especially given the controversy elsewhere.) I've edited it out here, but you can retrieve the text from the revision history.
    – Isaac Moses ♦
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 14:06
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    Welcome to Judaism.SE. Just a note: the term "old testament" is inherently Christian and can be kind of offensive, implying that there's a newer version available. A better, neutral way to describe our scripture is "Hebrew Bible". We tend to call it Tanakh, which is an abbreviation of torah (the five books of Moses), prophets, and writings (Kings, Chronicles, Song of Songs, etc -- everything that's not torah and not a prophet.)
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 14:23
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    Sign-offs are generally discouraged on the StackExchange sites (as are greetings, incidentally). And full disclosures about one's background are generally relegated to one's "about me" information. While I appreciate (understand) and appreciate (value) the sentiments behind your posting these, they do interfere with search engines' ability to parse your post and take up screen 'real estate'. I'll not remove yours (though you may wish to); this is for your future reference. @Monica, Kings is among the books of the prophets, not the "writings".
    – msh210 ♦
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 16:05
  • Interested to know about your project. Any link you can provide?
    – Laizer
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 16:35

1 Answer 1

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The JPS 1917 translation is public domain. It can be found at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm among other places.

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  • Thank you. I'll have to inspect the license closely, but that seems to be the exact answer I was hoping for. :-)
    – Andrew Thompson
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 12:57
  • ..And perhaps I should've mentioned in the original question, but my secondary question becomes moot if I can get a distributable Torah.
    – Andrew Thompson
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 13:05
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    Note that Torah is part of Tanach. This answer includes the whole Tanach and thus Torah is included.
    – Ray
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 20:34
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    Machon Mamre states very clearly on their homepage that they do not like to share and you cannot use info on their homepage. (Whether this would hold up in court is a question for a lawyer so please don't bother to respond with legal arguments). I can also tell you that they did make at least a few changes to the JPS 1917 text. If you want to get a truly free version, you can do so either direct from JPS, or from Sefaria (Sefaria also has an API if that appeals to you).
    – Popular Isn't Right
    Commented Jul 29, 2014 at 18:21
  • The Complete Tanach with Rashi's Commentary is very good but I do not know about the license.
    – sabbahillel
    Commented Nov 17, 2016 at 18:36

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