Bible Flora, Fauna & Realia — Digital Reference

Warning

Do not edit files directly! This project is generated by the Scripture Resource Studio Builder. Please make any changes there.

An interactive, mobile-first web application for exploring animals, plants, and material objects mentioned in the Bible. Built from the UBS Open License thematic lexicon data.

Live at: UBS Bible Dictionaries

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Overview

This project makes three scholarly handbooks and two lexical dictionaries — published by the United Bible Societies for Bible translators — freely accessible through a modern, searchable web interface:

Book	Entries	Source Work	Author
Fauna	114	All Creatures Great and Small: Living Things in the Bible	Edward R. Hope (© 2005)
Flora	141	Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible	Robert Koops (© 2012)
Realia	507	The Works of Their Hands: Man-made Things in the Bible	Ray Pritz (© 2009)
Greek	5507	UBS Greek New Testament Dictionary	UBS Open License
Hebrew	7223	UBS Hebrew Old Testament Dictionary	UBS Open License

13,492 entries covering the natural/cultural world of Scripture plus lexical dictionaries, complete with:

• Original Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin terms
• Transliterations and linguistic analysis
• Comprehensive Bible verse references (decoded from UBS reference codes)
• Detailed discussion and translation guidance
• Internal cross-references between related entries

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Features

• Three-panel layout — Entry navigator (left), article content (middle), references & language info (right)
• Full-text search — Instant search across all five books with highlighted results
• Lexicon tabs — Dedicated Greek/Hebrew dictionary browsing with sort/group modes
• Cross-reference modal preview — Click inline links to preview entries in a resizable, scrollable modal
• Cross-reference navigation — Open linked entries from modal or inline links
• Mobile-first responsive design — Collapsible panels with bottom navigation on small screens
• Keyboard shortcuts — / search, Alt+↑/↓ entry navigation, Alt+← previous entry, Esc close overlays
• URL hash routing — Shareable deep links to any entry (e.g., #fauna/2.13)
• Optional Strong’s enrichment — Attach Strong’s IDs to lemmas and open them directly in BibleHub
• Inline scripture/chapter decoding — {S:...} references render as clickable scripture chips
• Zero dependencies — Pure HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript; no frameworks or build tools needed at runtime
• Offline-capable — Fully static; works from the local filesystem or any web server

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Project Structure

flora-fauna-realia/
├── index.html      # Single-page application (landing + dictionary browser)
├── styles.css      # Mobile-first responsive styles
├── app.js          # Application logic (search, navigation, rendering)
├── data-fauna.js   # Auto-generated thematic fauna entries
├── data-flora.js   # Auto-generated thematic flora entries
├── data-realia.js  # Auto-generated thematic realia entries
├── data-greek.js   # Auto-generated Greek lexicon entries
├── data-hebrew.js  # Auto-generated Hebrew lexicon entries
├── data-index.js   # Lightweight index metadata
└── README.md

Build Pipeline

The data.js file is generated from the UBS XML sources by a Python script:

ubs-open-license/flora-fauna-realia/XML/
├── FAUNA_en.xml      # Source XML
├── FLORA_en.xml
├── REALIA_en.xml
├── strongs_map.json   # Optional lemma → Strong's mapping (user-provided)
└── build_site.py     # XML → data.js generator

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Getting Started

Quick Start (no build needed)

If you already have the data.js file, just open index.html in a browser:

# Serve locally (Python 3)
cd flora-fauna-realia
python -m http.server 8899

# Then visit http://localhost:8899

Rebuilding data files from XML

Requires Python 3.9+ and the UBS XML source files.

cd ubs-open-license/flora-fauna-realia/XML
python build_site.py

This parses thematic + lexical XML files and writes split data-*.js files to the app directory.

If strongs_map.json exists, Strong’s IDs are embedded per language set and shown in the right sidebar as external links.

Strong’s Mapping (Optional)

To enable Strong’s integration:

1. Copy ubs-open-license/flora-fauna-realia/XML/strongs_map.template.json to strongs_map.json.
2. Add mappings by language + lemma/transliteration.
3. Re-run python build_site.py.

Expected schema:

{
  "Hebrew": {
    "בְּהֵמָה": ["H0929"],
    "behemah": ["H0929"]
  },
  "Greek": {
    "ζῷον": ["G2226"],
    "zōon": ["G2226"]
  }
}

Notes:

• IDs are normalized to H#### / G#### format.
• Multiple IDs per lemma are supported.
• When available, the app adds quick links to BibleHub (https://biblehub.com/hebrew/####.htm or https://biblehub.com/greek/####.htm). Parsing FAUNA_en.xml... → 114 entries Parsing FLORA_en.xml... → 141 entries Parsing REALIA_en.xml... → 507 entries Parsing UBSGreekNTDic-v1.0-en.XML... → 5507 entries Parsing UBSHebrewDic-v0.9.1-en.XML... → 7223 entries

✓ Generated data-fauna.js, data-flora.js, data-realia.js, data-greek.js, data-hebrew.js, data-index.js Total entries: 13492

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
/	Focus the search bar
Esc	Close search results or side panels
Alt + ↑	Previous entry
Alt + ↓	Next entry
Alt + ←	Go back to previous selected entry

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Bible Reference Decoding

The UBS XML stores scripture references as 14-character codes:

Position:  BBB CCC VVV WWWWW
Example:   026 016 010 00012  →  Ezek 16:10

• BBB — Book number (001 = Genesis … 066 = Revelation, 067+ = Deuterocanon)
• CCC — Chapter
• VVV — Verse
• WWWWW — Word position (used for alignment; stripped in display)

Optional single-letter prefixes: H (Hebrew), G (Greek), etc.

The build script decodes all references into human-readable format (e.g., "Gen 1:28", "Rev 4:6").

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Content License

The dictionary content is © United Bible Societies, 2025, released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Source: github.com/ubsicap/ubs-open-license

Attribution

• Animals in the Bible — Adapted from All Creatures Great and Small: Living Things in the Bible by Edward R. Hope © 2005 United Bible Societies
• Plants and Trees in the Bible — Adapted from Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible by Robert Koops © 2012 United Bible Societies
• Human-made Things in the Bible — Adapted from The Works of Their Hands: Man-made Things in the Bible by Ray Pritz © 2009 United Bible Societies

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Developed By

The Free Bible Foundation (TFBF) https://tfbf.in