BibleMCP

Production-ready MCP server that lets LLMs explore, analyze, and reason over the Bible using local ChromaDB stores and Mistral embeddings.

Supported translations

Each translation is stored in its own isolated local Chroma directory (never mixed):

Alias	helloao ID	Display name
BSB	BSB	Berean Standard Bible
ASV	eng_asv	American Standard Version (1901)
BBE	eng_bbe	Bible in Basic English
KJAV	eng_kjv	King James (Authorized) Version

Architecture

MCP client (Cursor / Claude Desktop)
        │ stdio
        ▼
  biblemcp/server.py  →  tools  →  services  →  storage (Chroma per translation)
                                      ↓
                              helloao API (ingest)
                              Mistral API (embeddings)

Setup

1. Install

uv sync --extra dev

This creates .venv, installs the project in editable mode, and adds dev dependencies (pytest).

Note: onnxruntime is pinned to <=1.19.2 because newer releases dropped Intel Mac (x86_64) wheels. BibleMCP uses Mistral for embeddings, not Chroma's built-in ONNX embedder — this pin only satisfies ChromaDB's install requirement.

Run project commands through uv without activating the venv:

uv run biblemcp ingest --help
uv run pytest
uv run python -m biblemcp.server

2. Configure environment

Copy .env.example to .env and set your Mistral key:

cp .env.example .env

Required for ingest and semantic search:

• MISTRAL_API_KEY

Optional:

• BIBLEMCP_DATA_DIR (default ./data/chroma)
• BIBLEMCP_DEFAULT_TRANSLATION (default BSB)

3. Ingest Bible text

Before semantic tools work, populate the local databases:

uv run biblemcp ingest --translation BSB
uv run biblemcp ingest --all

This fetches text from helloao, embeds verses with mistral-embed, and upserts into data/chroma/{bsb,asv,bbe,kjav}/.

Re-running ingest is safe (upsert).

MCP client configuration

Cursor

Add to your MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "biblemcp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/absolute/path/to/BibleMCP", "run", "python", "-m", "biblemcp.server"],
      "env": {
        "MISTRAL_API_KEY": "your_key",
        "BIBLEMCP_DATA_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/BibleMCP/data/chroma"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "biblemcp": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/absolute/path/to/BibleMCP", "run", "python", "-m", "biblemcp.server"],
      "env": {
        "MISTRAL_API_KEY": "your_key",
        "BIBLEMCP_DATA_DIR": "/absolute/path/to/BibleMCP/data/chroma"
      }
    }
  }
}

Use absolute paths for --directory and BIBLEMCP_DATA_DIR. If uv is not on your PATH for the MCP host, use the full path to the uv binary.

Screenshots

Configured in Cursor

Once connected, biblemcp shows as active with all 10 tools available:

In action

Ask for verses on a theme — the agent searches and fetches passages through the MCP tools:

The 10 tools

Tool	What it does
search_verse	Semantic keyword/phrase search
get_verse	Exact single-verse lookup
get_passage	Exact verse range within a chapter
cross_reference	Semantic neighbors for a reference (not curated TSK)
topic_lookup	Semantic topic search
original_language_lookup	Semantic search framed by a term (not Strong's)
character_profile	Relevant verses about a character (no biography DB)
timeline_event_lookup	Relevant verses for an event (no date database)
summarize_passage	Chapter text + instructions for the host LLM to summarize
theological_analysis	Primary + related passages + question for host LLM analysis

All tools accept an optional translation field (BSB, ASV, BBE, KJAV).

Development

Run tests:

uv run pytest

Run the server locally:

uv run python -m biblemcp.server

CLI help:

uv run biblemcp ingest --help

Project layout

src/biblemcp/
  bible/          # book aliases, reference parsing
  clients/        # helloao + Mistral embeddings
  models/         # Pydantic types
  services/       # ingest, retrieval, search, context
  storage/        # per-translation Chroma store
  tools/          # MCP tool schemas, handlers, registry
  server.py       # FastMCP entrypoint
  cli.py          # ingest CLI
tests/            # unit, service, and tool tests
data/chroma/      # local vector stores (gitignored)

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE.