Biblical Atlas

biblical-atlas-mcp

biblical-atlas-mcp is an MCP server that gives AI agents the biblical-atlas Bible atlas as ten read-only tools: people, places, events, reigns, letters, journeys and Bible passages. Answers carry the atlas id, a link to the record's card on the atlas site where the record has one, and links to its sources: a list answer carries the first one and the total, and get_record returns them all. The atlas is in Spanish, and the server returns its names and summaries as they are.

Features

• Search every record by its Spanish name; accents and case are ignored ("jerusalen" finds Jerusalén).
• Read one record in full: family and relations in both directions, offices, coordinates and candidate sites, what happened at a place.
• List events by year or range, person, place, role, kind or Bible book, in date or story order.
• Ask who was alive, ruling or active in a year, with the evidence for each person.
• Look up a Bible reference ("Hch 16:1", "Hch 16", "Rut") and get the events, people, places and records that cite it.
• Find the shortest chain of family ties, succession and companionship between two people.
• Find places within a radius of a place or a coordinate.
• Years are signed in both directions: -607 means 607 a.e.c.
• No database and no atlas data in the package: the server downloads the atlas's public data file, caches it and refreshes it hourly with a conditional request.

Quick start

Needs Node.js 18 or newer. The npm package downloads the release binary for your platform on first run and checks it against the checksums published with the package.

Client	Setup
Claude Code	claude mcp add biblical-atlas -- npx -y biblical-atlas-mcp
Claude Desktop	claude_desktop_config.json: the mcpServers block below
Cursor	~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json: the mcpServers block below
VS Code	.vscode/mcp.json: the servers block below
Codex	~/.codex/config.toml: the TOML block below

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "biblical-atlas": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "biblical-atlas-mcp"] }
  }
}

{
  "servers": {
    "biblical-atlas": { "type": "stdio", "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "biblical-atlas-mcp"] }
  }
}

[mcp_servers.biblical-atlas]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "biblical-atlas-mcp"]

Then ask "who was alive in 607 a.e.c.?". The container image for HTTP clients, release binaries and every setting are in Getting started.

Tools

All ten tools are read only: they never write, delete or call anything but the atlas's own data file, so there is no read-only mode to switch on. Each declares an output schema and returns its answer both as structuredContent and as JSON text.

Tool	What it answers
search	Records by name, Spanish ("Pablo") or a Bible book in Spanish or English ("Acts"); did_you_mean on a miss
get_record	One record in full, with its sources
get_records	Up to 20 records in one call
list_records	Periods, letters, journeys, finds, tours, books, months; places of a kind; holders of an office
list_events	Events by year, person, place, role, kind or Bible book
people_in_year	Who was alive or active in a year, with the evidence
lookup_passage	What the atlas has on a reference ("Hch 16:1" or "Acts 16:1")
find_connection	The shortest chain of ties between two people
places_near	Places within a radius of a place or a point
dataset_info	Freshness, counts, and the values the kind and role filters accept

Protocol

The server speaks MCP 2026-07-28 and every earlier revision down to 2024-11-05, on stdio and on streamable HTTP. Clients that still start with initialize (Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code today) work as before; clients on 2026-07-28 get server/discover, stateless requests and cacheable tool lists from the same binary.

Documentation

• Getting started: every install path and a first call
• Configuration: every variable, flag and client config
• Usage: the ten tools, their parameters and what they return
• How it works: download, cache, refresh and offline use
• Development: build, test and release

Related projects

The data belongs to biblical-atlas, the atlas this server reads. It stays on the atlas site with its sources; this server only fetches and indexes it. Other MCP servers in the family: telegram-archive-mcp.

License

MIT