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About Candlelit Bible
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Candlelit Bible is for anyone opening the Bible again, often at night and on a phone, who wants one story at a time without a sermon.
What each story gives you
- The real text, quoted exactly from a public-domain translation (King James Version, Douay-Rheims or World English Bible) with the chapter and verse.
- The context: who, where and when, with a source you can check.
- The painting: a named old-master work, with the artist, date and the museum where you can see it. Where we can, we pick a museum in the US.
Editorial standard
- No invented quotes and no paraphrases presented as Scripture.
- Respectful of every Christian tradition; we do not rank churches or translations.
- No politics, and no claims about healing, prosperity or the future.
- Mistakes are corrected on the page with the date.
Candlelit Bible is independent and is not affiliated with any church, publisher or museum.
Credits
Every painting image on this site is a museum-supplied file of a public-domain work, used under that museum's open-access terms. We changed only the size and file format. The museums do not endorse this site.
- Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Daniel in the Lions' Den, c. 1614/1616. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, accession 1965.13.1. License: Public domain (NGA Open Access). Museum statement: "This object's media is free and in the public domain." Museum record · image file · retrieved 2026-10-20.
- Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1667/1670. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, accession 1948.12.1. License: Public domain (NGA Open Access). Museum statement: "This object's media is free and in the public domain." Museum record · image file · retrieved 2026-10-20.
- Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, The Raising of Lazarus, c. 1630-1632. Oil on wood panel. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), accession M.72.67.2. License: Public domain work, free image download (LACMA). Museum statement: "LACMA supports free access to images of works in the Public Domain. Where available, you may download images for your use." Museum record · image file · retrieved 2026-10-20.
- Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), The Denial of Saint Peter, 1610. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession 1997.167. License: Public domain, CC0 (The Met Open Access). Museum statement: "Public Domain. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use" Museum record · image file · retrieved 2026-10-20.
- Titian and workshop, Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos, c. 1553/1555. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, accession 1957.14.6. License: Public domain (NGA Open Access). Museum statement: "This object's media is free and in the public domain." Museum record · image file · retrieved 2026-10-20.
Credit lines: National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund 1965.13.1; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948.12.1; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of H. F. Ahmanson and Company, in memory of Howard F. Ahmanson, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Herman and Lila Shickman, and Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1997 (1997.167); National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1957.14.6.
Verse text from public-domain translations, quoted exactly with the reference. Paintings are named with their museum. Candlelit Bible is independent and not affiliated with any church or museum.