Frequently asked

Patmos is a Bible study app for iPhone with a study companion named John. Open your Bible, point your camera at the page or type a passage, and John walks you through it with the original Greek and Hebrew, cross-references and the history behind the text.

John is the study companion inside Patmos. He studies with the depth of a seminary professor and the warmth of a trusted pastor.

He’s named in honor of the Apostle John, who received the Revelation on the island of Patmos. He isn’t the Apostle and doesn’t claim to be.

Yes. John is an AI built on Claude, made by Anthropic. Patmos moves him to newer Claude models as Anthropic releases them.

No. John is a tool, not a teacher under divine inspiration. He can be wrong and he can miss things. He isn’t the Holy Spirit and can’t do what the Spirit does.

If you ever find yourself studying with John instead of opening your Bible or talking to a trusted believer, close the app and do that first.

John studies inside historic Christian orthodoxy, with Scripture as the final authority and the Nicene Creed as the baseline. Where faithful traditions read a passage differently, he shows you each reading without forcing one on you.

The full statement is on the theology page. John can still be wrong, so check what he says against your Bible and your church.

Patmos is built by Jon Mancini in North Haven, Connecticut, and published by Mancini Tech Solutions, LLC.

Take a photo of a page in your Bible. Patmos finds the book, chapter and verses, and John starts the study from there.

No. You can type a reference like Romans 8:28 or John 3, or just ask a question about Scripture.

Use the Bible you already read, whatever the translation. Photograph the page or type a reference and John takes it from there. When the wording matters, tell him which translation you’re reading and he can set it beside others. Underneath every translation he works from the Hebrew and Greek.

Ask for one thing and he’ll keep it short. Ask him to go deep and he’ll open the original languages, the cross-references, the history and how different traditions read the passage. You can ask follow-up questions as you go.

Within a conversation, John works from your most recent 20 messages, about ten back-and-forths, so in a longer study the earliest ones drop out of view. He also gets a short note about your other sessions, like when you last studied and what that conversation was called. When you study a passage you’ve photographed before, he sees the highlights and notes Patmos saved from that page.

He doesn’t carry every past study into a new one, and he won’t pretend he does.

Tell him. He’ll look again and correct himself when you’re right. Please also email the passage and what he said to support@patmosbible.com so we can look at it too.

Patmos is free to download, and free studies are complete studies. Patmos Plus is $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year in the US, and the first 7 days are free. Apple handles the billing, so the price for your country shows inside the app.

Plus opens longer studies. A free study comes to a natural stopping point once it’s complete. With Plus, John doesn’t pause there and carries the study further.

Yes. Your first 7 days of Patmos Plus are free. The plan you picked starts after the trial unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends.

Apple manages the subscription. On your iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, then choose Patmos. Cancel at least 24 hours before the period ends to avoid the next charge.

Your messages go to Anthropic, which generates John’s answers. Each message is also checked automatically for signs of a crisis, and one that’s flagged is recorded so we can review it. The most serious may also alert our team by email or text. Photos of Bible pages go to Google, which finds the passage and reads any highlights, underlines or notes on the page. Patmos saves those marks to your account so John can see them the next time you study that passage. If you use voice, OpenAI’s Whisper turns your voice into text and ElevenLabs reads John’s answers aloud.

Your conversations are stored so you can come back to them, and Anthropic doesn’t train its models on them. The full detail is in the Privacy Policy.

Your conversations are private. When John teaches on a passage, Patmos may save his teaching on it to the Patmos Commons, a public layer of notes attached to each verse. The note is written as general teaching on the passage rather than a copy of your conversation, and it’s credited to John, never to you.

A study John marks as personal isn’t shared, and a note that contains the name John calls you is held back. Those checks are automatic and can miss things, like the name of someone you mentioned. If you ever see personal details in the Commons, email support@patmosbible.com.

Commons notes aren’t tied to your account, so they stay even if you delete it. The Privacy Policy has the full detail.

In the Patmos app, tap the profile icon at the top of the screen, then Delete Account. Deleting your account permanently erases your private data, including your conversations. Anonymous Commons notes stay, since they were never tied to you.

Yes. Email support@patmosbible.com and we’ll send you a copy of what we store within 30 days.

Patmos is on iPhone, on iOS 15.1 or later.

If you’re in the US and thinking about suicide or in crisis, call 988 or text 988 any time. If you’re in danger, call 911. Outside the US, call your local emergency number.

John will pray with you and point you to people who can help. He’s an AI, though, not a crisis line, and a daily limit on questions can cut a conversation short. Please reach out to a person too.

Email support@patmosbible.com. We read every message and aim to respond within 48 hours.