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the idea of developing an XML-based system for scriptural markup. The result was a consortium formed with the United Bible Societies, the American Bible Society, the Society of Biblical Literature, and several smaller stakeholders, known as the Bible Technologies Group. The group’s initial effort was the XML Scripture Encod-ing Model (XSEM), which differed from Plantinga’s approach in a number of respects. Notable differences were that XSEM was based on a W3C XML Schema rather than a Document Type Definition (DTD), and XSEM focused exclusively on markup for scripture, as opposed to other forms of theological literature.4 XSEM was short-lived as an independent standard, however, and was quickly expanded into a more ambitious undertak-ing—the Open Scripture Information Standard (OSIS)—from 2000 on.5 The range of application was extended beyond XSEM’s narrow focus in order to include both “scripture and related text,” and plans were laid to market OSIS as an industry standard. The OSIS FAQ sheet even provided a thirty-second “elevator speech” for pitching it to supervisors at publishing companies.6

Like ThML, OSIS took inspiration from TEI, inheriting large numbers of elements directly and retaining TEI form attributes to enable processors to make equivalences.7 Also like ThML, but in marked contrast to TEI, it aimed at the slimmest possible profile. The user manual boasted that, apart from construction of the document header, “the average user can produce a professional quality encoding of a Bible text with fifteen (15) or fewer elements.”8

A much richer set than fifteen was available, however. Like ThML, a <verse> element was offered, joined by a <chapter> element. The latter was admitted by OSIS’ documentation to be a case of “syntactic sugar”—an element marking a function easily marked in another way—but it did clarify document structures for lightly-trained encoders already working with <verse>.

Another simplification for encoders was the attribute @canonical, which could be applied to any element to distinguish core material in a work from editorial apparatus and inclusions, regardless of whether those inclusions came from preparation of the markup or were present in the source (such as distinguishing the text of a Bible chapter from headings introducing subsections of a chapter by theme). This could be reflected otherwise through the use of @resp, of course, but @canonical provided a more convenient shorthand for a very common binary distinction. OSIS also provided preset <div> types such as “bookGroup,” “book,” “commentary,” “concordance,” “devotional,” “majorSection,” “section,” and “subSection,” the latter three offering particular functionality in representing common exegetical subdivisions of Biblical books that are not expressly indicated in the chapter-verse system, such as the “Servant Songs” within Isaiah.

Similarly, <note> types were included in the base schema for “allusion,” “background,” “crossReference,” “devotional,” “exegesis,” “explanation,” “study,” “translation,” and “alternative/variant,” facilitating the process of manipulating textual notes at fine degrees of granularity. Special elements were included for epistles (<salute>, <signed>, <closer>), as well as special attributes for <l> (used to mark lines of poetry) to represent particularities in the structure of Old Testament verse (@doxology, @selah). The <divineName> was given its own element, to allow easy transformations when it was necessary to suppress representation, substitute, or transform by special rules in the stylesheet. Other names benefitted likewise from special attributes for the standard <name> element (@holiday, @nonhuman, @ritual). The @see attribute aided in the encoding of scriptural cross-references in automatically generated indices.

4 Dennis Drescher, “XSEM: XML Scripture Encoding Model,” SIL, September 6, 2001, https://scripts.sil.org/xsem.

5 Patrick Durusau, OSIS Users Manual, American Bible Society (https://web.archive.org/web/20120226061942/http://img.forministry.com/7/7B/7BB51FB8-84B3-4FF3-939ED473FA90A632/DOC/OSIS2_1UserManual_06March2006_-_with_O’Donnell_edits.PDF), 2.

6 Bible Technologies Group, OSIS FAQs (https://web.archive.org/web/20131107020309/http://www.bibletechnolo-gies.net:80/vsItemDisplay.dsp&objectID=B25323FC-E8BB-49C2-A6C98E74A377F721&method=display).

7 Durusau, OSIS Users Manual, 2.

8 Durusau, OSIS Users Manual, 11-12.