My view of bible translation and text criticism has changed and thus don't have any use for this anymore.
Κατασημεῖον 
Markdown-like markup for formatting Biblical texts
The name is a nerd joke: κατα- can be translated down; σημεῖον can be translated mark. This is not to say that this is the actual Greek word for Markdown.
While in college, I create a mashup of scripts that I used to convert an easy-to-write XML format into HTML or LaTeX so I could pretty-print my translations of Biblical books without having to use a WYSIWYG editor. I prefer to live in my native habitat, Vim than to use even LibreOffice Writer.
Then I started using StackOverflow, and learned Markdown. Markdown grew and grew on me. Finally, I've decided it's time to take the ideas that I used in my XML hacks from before and convert them into something Markdown-like.
There are some common characteristics that Biblical texts have that most other texts don't have, such as verse numbers. I also wanted to support a certain level of text-critical markup, such as marking textual variants. Also, there are things that Biblical texts just don't have, like @-style mentions, hyperlinks, code blocks, math, and other such modern internet-y stuff that Markdown is geared towards. This meant that I could repurpose some of Markdown, and also could claim more symbols for specialized verse-number and footnote markup, etc.
If you find this project useful, please let me know so that I can put more effort into it. Also, please feel free to submit issues about bugs or feature requests.
Example
The example directory of the project contains the following example. Here is a
rough draft of 1 John 1 with Katasemeion markup, in Vim (the Greek words are in
red because I have not added them to my spell file and spelling is turned on):
And rendered in the browser, you can see that the footnotes pop up and regions
marked as needing further attention with <...> are red. The light
half-brackets on the bottom, such as around the words about him, are an
indicator that the translator wants you to know that he inserted these words.
The light half-brackets on the top are an indicator of what region the footnote
pertains to. The rest is fairly self-explanatory; if there were a textual
variant shown, it would use a light full-bracket.
If you don't like the way this HTML renders, you can configure it with CSS.
The example will be shown rendered in PDF via XeLaTeX once that feature is implemented.
How to Run It
Currently it must be run through Node, though I have written it in JavaScript in order to allow for in-browser translation. Also, currently it doesn't support installs. You will need to pull down the project, build it with grunt, and then run it something like this:
node build/app.js ~/translations/Revelation.katasemeion > ~/translations/output/Revelation.html
Same as Markdown
Paragraphs are separated by two newlines. # is used to denote the top-level
title (actually, this is not implemented yet, but there is an issue for it).
## is used for section headers (likewise, not yet implemented). Single
asterisks (*italicized*) are used to denote italics, as are underscores
(_italicized_). Double asterisks are used to denote bold text, (**bolded**).
Similar to Markdown
You can format poetry by using indenting that is typically used for code in Markdown, i.e. beginning each line of verse with four spaces, and adding an additional four spaces for each further indent that is desired.
Same as LaTeX
You can use ``...'' and `...' to denote curved quotes,
as in LaTeX.
Other markup in the style of Markdown
You can explicitly specify chapter numbers explicitly like %4% and verse
numbers explicitly with the corresponding notation: ^8a^.
Footnotes are denoted by brackets: {footnote text}. You can denote what text
the footnote applies to by adding a pair of "at" signs previous to the footnote:
@text under question@{footnote about it}.
You can mark some places with "todo" notation for revisiting later by using
angle brackets: <Jesus answered, saying>. You can mark a section of text as
having been inserted by the translator using square brackets: he was not the Light, but [he had come] so that he might witness about the Light. You can mark
a section as being left out in some manuscripts by using double square brackets:
the one coming from heaven [[is above all]].