Numa Verse

Thesis

The Numa Verse Thesis

The Numa Verse Thesis is the paper in which Numa Verse makes the case for a peer-reviewed standard for how theological scholarship is represented in the age of artificial intelligence. It proposes that named specialists, organised as an academic board, review and sign off scholarly content, and it takes the Berean Standard Bible and the World English Bible as the base texts. The standard it describes records the positions of each tradition and does not rule on doctrine.

Abstract. For most of Christian history, the question of what the text says and how it has been read was answered by people who could be named. A growing number of people now put their questions about Scripture to machines, which answer fluently from material the reader cannot inspect. This Thesis argues that the representation of theological scholarship now needs a standard that a machine can be held to: one that records the textual evidence, attributes each interpretation to those who hold it, is reviewed by scholars across the traditions, and is secured so that anyone can check that what they are reading is what was approved. It does not seek to settle Christian doctrine, and it claims no authority to do so.

Version 1.0 · 5 November 2026 · 55 pages · 12 sections

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Cover of The Numa Verse Thesis, Version 1.0

At a Glance

What does the Numa Verse Thesis argue?

Three things are true at once, and together they make the case for Numa Verse: people are turning to machines with questions about Scripture; those machines answer in ways the reader cannot readily test; and a standard can be built, from attributed and reviewed scholarship, against which those answers can be checked.

  • The questions are moving.

    Recent surveys in the United States show substantial openness to AI in matters of faith and an emerging pattern of actual use.

  • The answers are hard to test.

    Even when an AI system offers sources, the reader must still establish whether those sources support the answer, which commentary a reading came from, and which tradition holds it.

  • A standard can be built.

    The raw material already exists in the published work of biblical scholars and theologians across every tradition. What is missing is the work of gathering it, attributing it, having it reviewed by qualified scholars, keeping it current, and securing it.

What Is Inside

What does the Numa Verse Thesis cover?

Twelve sections, from the argument in brief to the Thesis on one page, with the sources numbered and addressed at the back.

  1. 01Page 9

    The Argument in Brief

    Three things are true at once: people are turning to machines with questions about Scripture; those machines answer in ways the reader cannot readily test; and a standard can be built, from attributed and reviewed scholarship, against which those answers can be checked.

  2. 02Page 12

    An Age of Uncertainty

    The Church has lived through an age like this before. In its first centuries, many voices claimed to speak for the faith, and the response was the slow, public work of naming what had been received and who could be relied on to hand it on.

  3. 03Page 15

    The Change

    For a growing number of readers, an AI system is becoming one of the first places they turn with a question about Scripture. An AI system answers at a scale no teacher ever reached, and the reader can rarely see the scholarship behind the reply.

  4. 04Page 18

    What Is at Stake

    What is at stake is not convenience but the text of Scripture itself: what it says, where it comes from, how it has been translated, and how it has been read. On these questions ordinary readers are most easily misled, and scholarship has the most to give.

  5. 05Page 21

    Why Now

    The need for a standard has arrived because two things have happened together: artificial intelligence has become an everyday source of answers about faith, and church leaders and institutions across several traditions have begun to say, in their own published teaching and statements, that this matters.

  6. 06Page 24

    Why This Is Hard

    A standard for theological scholarship is harder to build than it sounds. It has to be faithful to scholarship, fair to every tradition, careful with a text that communities hold sacred, and accountable to real people.

  7. 07Page 27

    The Numa Verse Answer

    Numa Verse is building a peer-reviewed standard for how theological scholarship is represented: the textual evidence, the interpretations and the teaching of each tradition, each attributed to those who hold it. The standard records positions; it does not rule on doctrine.

  8. 08Page 33

    The Principles

    Five principles govern everything Numa Verse builds: establish the text first, claim no authority over doctrine, let every tradition speak in its own words, keep a person accountable, and safeguard the text.

  9. 09Page 36

    How We Test

    A standard for theological scholarship is only as good as the method behind it, and a method is only credible if it shows what it has not yet done. The Thesis sets out how the work is tested, and states plainly what remains to be proved.

  10. 10Page 40

    Built for All

    The Numa Verse standard has to serve the person with a first question and the scholar with a lifetime of study, and Christians of every tradition without favouring one. That breadth is the point, and the standard does not bend for it.

  11. 11Page 43

    The Invitation

    Numa Verse cannot build the standard alone. The foundation is the work scholars have already published, and the review that turns it into a standard is the work scholars choose to do. The Invitation asks scholars, faculties and seminaries to take part.

  12. 12Page 46

    The Thesis on One Page

    Five steps, one for each part of the argument, and the present status of the work. A reader who sees only the Thesis on One Page has the argument and knows where it stands.

Section One

The Argument in Brief.

Three things are true at once, and together they make the case for Numa Verse: people are turning to machines with questions about Scripture; those machines answer in ways the reader cannot readily test; and a standard can be built, from attributed and reviewed scholarship, against which those answers can be checked.

Three things, true at once.

The first is that the questions are moving. Recent surveys in the United States show substantial openness to AI in matters of faith and an emerging pattern of actual use. Barna Group, surveying 1,514 American adults in November 2025 and 442 Protestant pastors in December 2025, found that 48 percent of practicing Christians would trust AI with their spiritual growth, and 34 percent said its spiritual guidance is as trustworthy as a pastor’s [1]. Actual use is lower than that openness: in an NPR/Ipsos survey in August 2026, 11 percent of Americans who use AI had sought spiritual or religious guidance from it, and 15 percent had used it to study Scripture or religious texts [4]. The evidence comes mainly from the United States, and the frequency and depth of use remain uncertain. The direction is clear.

The second is that the answers are hard to test. A general AI system answers a question about Romans or Revelation from patterns learned across a vast body of text. Even when it offers sources, the reader must still establish whether those sources support the answer, which commentary a reading came from, and which tradition holds it. The people who use these systems know this: in the same Barna research, 83 percent of practicing Christians and 94 percent of the pastors surveyed said they worry that AI will misinterpret Scripture [1].

The third is that this can be met. The raw material already exists in the published work of biblical scholars and theologians across every tradition, and in each tradition’s own statements of what it teaches. What is missing is the work of gathering it, attributing it, having it reviewed by qualified scholars, keeping it current, and securing it so that an AI can be held to what has been verified. That is the work Numa Verse exists to do.

Sources cited in this extract
  1. 1Barna Group, “AI is Becoming a Spiritual Authority, Even Among Practicing Christians”, 19 May 2026.https://www.barna.com/research/christians-trust-ai-flourishing-spiritual-authority/ (opens in a new tab)
  2. 4Ipsos, “Most Americans skeptical of turning to AI for spiritual guidance”, 28 September 2026.https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/most-americans-skeptical-turning-ai-spiritual-guidance (opens in a new tab)

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Read Next

Where does the paper lead?

The Standard

What the Numa Verse standard is, how review works and how every source is cited.Read About the Standard

Fields of Study

The fields of theology the standard covers, from textual criticism to church history.See the Fields of Study

Contribute

How theologians, scholars, pastors and students build and review the standard.Contribute to the Standard

The Journal

Articles drawn from the fields of study, each citing every source with its address.Read the Journal