Bible Annotation

An experiment: have an LLM annotate the bible sentence by sentence on a historical-credibility spectrum.

The spectrum

Each sentence falls into one of seven categories:

• Not a historical claim. Commands, theology, poetry, parables, exhortation. Off-axis; left uncolored.
• Mythological / cosmogonic. Creation accounts, the Flood, talking serpents.
• Miraculous. Parting the sea, resurrections, individual healings.
• Legendary. Heavily mythologized narratives with little to no archaeological support (patriarchs, the Exodus as described, Joshua's conquest).
• Unverified historical claim. Could plausibly have happened; no independent confirmation. The default when uncertain.
• Attested with embellishment. Real people or events confirmed by independent sources, with biblical framing shaped by the author.
• Independently confirmed. Corroborated by extrabiblical sources or archaeology.

Reds (dark to light) lean unhistorical; blues (light to dark) lean attested; untinted text isn't making a historical claim. There is no mixed middle. When in doubt, lean red.

How

Annotations were produced by an LLM given the spectrum and rules above. Source text: NABRE. Seven chapters so far, listed below.