New English Translation(NET)

The New English Translation is published by Biblical Studies Press and began in 1995, growing out of a conversation among scholars at the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting. It was created specifically to be freely distributed on the internet — early beta versions were posted online for public feedback starting in the late 1990s, well before that was a common approach, with the first full print edition following in 2005 and a revision in 2019.

The NET describes its own approach as mixed: it leans formal by default, staying close to the wording of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, while adjusting toward more natural English where a strictly literal rendering would be unclear. Its real signature, though, is its footnotes — the NET Bible's Full Notes Edition carries more than 60,000 translators' notes explaining word choices, alternate readings, and textual variants verse by verse, effectively functioning as a built-in commentary alongside the translation itself.

On gender language, the NET takes a moderate approach: where the original text is clearly addressing both men and women, it generally translates that inclusively, while keeping masculine wording wherever a passage is addressing men specifically or referring to God.

The NET has remained freely available online since its earliest beta versions, under a copyright that permits free downloading and broad reuse — unusual for a modern translation still under active copyright, and a direct reflection of its original mission to make a serious, scholarly translation freely accessible to anyone.