OpenChristianDataOrg/open-christian-data

Open Christian Data

Public domain Christian literature as structured, machine-readable data — for developers and AI training.

Commentary data is trapped in HTML and PDFs. No structured commentary dataset exists on HuggingFace. No per-chapter commentary JSON exists on GitHub.

This dataset processes public domain Christian literature — commentaries, church fathers, confessions, catechisms, devotionals, prayers, sermons — into clean, schema-validated records with full provenance metadata.

GitHub: OpenChristianData/open-christian-data

Schema types

Config	Records	Description
commentary	109,774	Verse-level commentary (Matthew Henry, Barnes, Calvin, Wesley, Adam Clarke, Gill, JFB, KD, Treasury of David)
church_fathers	70,191	Patristic quotes indexed by scripture reference — 325 authors (Augustine, Chrysostom, Jerome, Origen, Aquinas...)
bible_text	31,086	Berean Standard Bible — all 66 books, 31,086 verses, CC0
structured_text	13,207	Paragraph-level blocks from 11 works (Calvin's Institutes, Augustine's Confessions, Pilgrim's Progress, City of God, Chesterton, Thomas à Kempis, MacDonald, Underhill, Milton, Luther's Large Catechism)
topical_reference	5,945	Nave's Topical Bible — 5,322 topics, 76,957 scripture references
reference_entry	11,145	Easton's, Smith's, Hitchcock's Bible Dictionaries + Torrey's New Topical Textbook
catechism_qa	3,279	Question-and-answer catechisms (Westminster Shorter/Larger, Heidelberg, Baltimore #1–3, Luther's Small, Keach's, and more)
doctrinal_document	1,331	Confessions and creeds at clause level (Westminster, Nicene, Chalcedonian, Belgic, Dort, London Baptist 1689, Savoy, and 30+ more)
devotional	1,464	Spurgeon's Morning and Evening (732 entries) + Daily Light on the Daily Path (732 entries)
sermon	36	George MacDonald's Unspoken Sermons — 3 series, 36 sermons, 171k words
prayer	191	BCP 1662 Collects (85), BCP 1928 Collects (102), Didache Prayers (4)
Total	247,649

Data format

Every record is a flat JSON object. Six fields are inlined from the source file's metadata:

Field	Description
_source_id	Unique identifier for the source work
_source_title	Title of the source work
_author	Author name
_contributors	Translators, editors, and digitizers (array, may be empty)
_schema_type	Schema type (matches the config name)
_license	License identifier (cc0-1.0 or public-domain)
_source_url	Canonical URL for the source

The remaining fields are schema-specific. All verse references use OSIS format (Gen.1.1, Rom.9.1-Rom.9.5).

Commentary record example

{
  "_source_id": "matthew-henry-complete",
  "_source_title": "Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary",
  "_author": "Matthew Henry",
  "_schema_type": "commentary",
  "_license": "public-domain",
  "_source_url": "https://bible.helloao.org",
  "entry_id": "matthew-henry-complete.Ezek.1.1-3",
  "book": "Ezekiel",
  "book_osis": "Ezek",
  "chapter": 1,
  "verse_range": "1-3",
  "verse_range_osis": "Ezek.1.1-Ezek.1.3",
  "verse_text": "In the thirtieth year...",
  "commentary_text": "The circumstances of the vision which Ezekiel saw...",
  "word_count": 2042
}

Structured text record example

{
  "_source_id": "pilgrims-progress",
  "_source_title": "The Pilgrim's Progress",
  "_author": "John Bunyan",
  "_schema_type": "structured_text",
  "_license": "public-domain",
  "_source_url": "https://github.com/standardebooks/john-bunyan_the-pilgrims-progress",
  "work_id": "pilgrims-progress",
  "work_kind": "allegory",
  "section_type": "part",
  "section_label": "The First Part",
  "section_title": "",
  "section_path": ["The First Part"],
  "block_index": 0,
  "text": "As I walked through the wilderness of this world..."
}

Usage

from datasets import load_dataset

# Load a specific schema type
commentary = load_dataset("OpenChristianDataOrg/open-christian-data", "commentary")
church_fathers = load_dataset("OpenChristianDataOrg/open-christian-data", "church_fathers")
catechisms = load_dataset("OpenChristianDataOrg/open-christian-data", "catechism_qa")

# Filter by source
matthew_henry = [r for r in commentary["train"] if r["_source_id"] == "matthew-henry-complete"]

# All commentary on a specific verse
rom_8_28 = [
    r for r in commentary["train"]
    if "Rom.8.28" in (r.get("verse_range_osis") or "")
]

Sources

• Bible text: Berean Standard Bible — CC0 since April 2023
• Commentary: HelloAO Bible API — Matthew Henry, JFB, Gill, Adam Clarke, KD; CrossWire SWORD — Barnes, Calvin, Wesley, Treasury of David; all public domain
• Church Fathers: HistoricalChristianFaith/Commentaries-Database — 325 authors, public domain
• Devotionals: Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org) — Spurgeon's Morning and Evening (ThML XML); CrossWire SWORD — Daily Light on the Daily Path; public domain
• Structured texts: Standard Ebooks — 9 titles in CC0-annotated XHTML; Project Gutenberg — Luther's Large Catechism, Calvin's Institutes, Augustine's Confessions; public domain
• Catechisms: Project Gutenberg — Luther's Small Catechism, Baltimore Catechisms #1–3; additional catechisms (Westminster, Heidelberg, Keach's, and more); public domain
• Confessions & creeds: Westminster Confession, Nicene Creed, Chalcedonian Definition, and 30+ more historic documents; public domain
• Prayers: eskimo.com BCP 1662 (Lynda M. Howell); episcopalnet.org BCP 1928; Wikisource Didache (Kirsopp Lake 1912 translation); public domain
• Bible dictionaries: Easton's (1893), Smith's (1863), Hitchcock's (1874), Torrey's (1897); public domain
• Topical reference: CrossWire SWORD — Nave's Topical Bible (1896); public domain
• All authors died before 1928; texts are unambiguously public domain.

Attribution

Devotional text sourced from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). ThML parsing permitted per correspondence with CCEL (April 2026).

License

• Data (JSONL datasets): CC0 1.0 Universal — dedicated to the public domain
• Code (build scripts, schemas, tooling): MIT

The underlying texts are public domain. Our value-add is the structuring and provenance tracking, which we also dedicate to the public domain.