Online Biblical Resources
This page is dedicated to offering various websites that work to further the study of the Bible, ancient languages and cultures. I hope you find it of use to you. In the event that I have overlooked a site that you have found helpful, please leave me a comment so that I might add it. Thus, updates will be forthcoming. I would like to add that in the Biblical Studies section, included is an open course offered by Yale University in Hebrew Bible.
ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN RESOURCES
A guide to information related to the study of the Ancient Near East on the Web.
Tyndale House Residential Research Centre, University of Cambridge.
Bible and ancient Near East: A blog emphasizing teaching & research; causing reflection; and moving the field forward.
Albright School of Biblical Archeology: Totally Free Online Courses in Archaeology and Biblical Archeology.
BiblePlaces.com features photographs and descriptions of sites in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Greece with an emphasis on biblical archaeology, geography and history.
The Department of the Middle East covers the ancient and contemporary civilisations and cultures of the Middle East from the Neolithic period until the present.
Oxford University.
The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon overseen by Lawrence E. Stager, PhD, Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel and Director of the Semitic Museum, Harvard University.
A project of the University of Oxford comprising over 400 compositions from the late third and early second millennia BCE.
Electronic Tools and Ancient Near Eastern Archives
An interactive study of Egypt using the latest interactive technologies, high-resolution imagery, animations, virtual environments, remote cameras, three-dimensional models and more.
Museum at Cario which contains over 120,000 artifacts dating from pre-historic times until the Graeco-Roman period.
A website by the Newton Institute in the University of Cambridge to provide a World Wide Web resource for Egyptological information.
Information about and translations of compositions of the Hittites.
A Networked Database of Ancient Near Eastern Inscriptions Project Overview. By Bruce Zuckerman, et. al.
The largest freely available archive of online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.
The IAA serves as the leading professional body in the study of archaeology in the land of Israel.
The page is a gem, containing a searchable catalogue of the museum’s vast collection of artifacts.
In the seventh century BC the Assyrian monarch was the most powerful human being in the whole Middle East. Hundreds of letters, queries and reports survive from Neo-Assyrian capital of Nineveh in northern Iraq. They show scholars advising the Assyrian royal family on matters ominous, astrological and medical, often with direct impact on political affairs. Along with court poetry and royal prophecies, they give an extraordinary vivid insight into the actual practice of scholarship in the context of the first well-documented courtly patronage of scientific activity in world history. In partnership with the British Museum.
The Leader in Reliable Archaeological Visualizations for Interactive Education and Research
Articles on ancient history. See especially the Mesopotamia subcategory for Babylonian entries.
Resources provide by Georgetown University.
University of Tel Aviv, Israel.
Internet resources of Mesopotamia’s history, religion, and languages. Includes a translation of the Old Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish and Gilgamesh.
Assyrian State Archives at the University of Helsinki, Finland.
An internationally recognized pioneer in the archaeology, philology, and history of early Near Eastern civilizations.
Conducted the first scientific excavations of the Holy Land.
Visit the digs in the Aegean, Anatolia, Balkans, Iranian Plateau, Levant, and Mesopotamia.
Current Projects.
Virtual tours of Syro-Palestinian archeological sites.
The W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) in Jerusalem is the oldest American research center for ancient Near Eastern studies in the Middle East. Founded in 1900 as the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR), it was renamed in 1970 after its most distinguished director, William Foxwell Albright. Today, the Albright is one of three separately incorporated institutes affiliated with ASOR, the others being in Amman and Nicosia.
ANCIENT LANGUAGES
Online resources for learning ancient languages, including audio mp3 tracks.
Digitization of the oldest and most complete Hebrew Bible by the Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem.
Teaching the ancient language of the Bible through study of the Hebrew its culture.
Charles Grebe of Saskatchewan, Canada has compiled a wonderful site of biblical Hebrew aids. It contains everything from comics to songs to flashcards and charts to video lectures.
John Heise’s review of the cuneiform writing system.
This site is for Bible students who are looking for detailed information on the history of the canon, texts, textual criticism, and versions of Scripture. A great site for researching Bible translation.
Promoting the study of Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic, and Hellenistic Greek
The Codex Sinaiticus Project is an international collaboration to reunite the entire manuscript in digital form and make it accessible to a global audience for the first time.
The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) represents the efforts of an international group of Assyriologists, museum curators and historians of science to make available through the internet the form and content of cuneiform tablets dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3350 BC, until the end of the pre-Christian era. We estimate the number of these documents currently kept in public and private collections to exceed 500,000 exemplars, of which now more than 246,000 have been catalogued in electronic form by the CDLI.
Daily readings from Biblical Hebrew supplemented with vocabulary and syntax.
A dynamic illustrated vocabulary resource from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
The archaeological site of Ras Shamra is situated a few kms east of the Mediterranean coast of Syria, and constitutes the remains of the ancient city of Ugarit.
Ezra SIL is a typeface fashioned after the square letter forms of the typography of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS).
Pages collected by Dr. Reinhard G. Lehmann. Research Unit on Ancient Hebrew and Epigraphy. Includes Aramaic, Ugaritic, and Phoenician. Some sites are in German.
Writing systems and Languages of the World.
Downloadable fonts for your personal computer or Mac.
A full two semester online course in Bill Mounce’s (Biblical) Koine Greek for Beginners.
The West Semitic Research Project is an academic project affiliated with the University of Southern California School of Religion and directed by Dr. Bruce Zuckerman. For the past 28 years WSRP has used advanced photographic and computer imaging techniques to document objects and texts from the ancient world. In doing this we have built a vast collection of images that we are now making available to scholars, students, educators and the general public through a variety of ways.
BIBLICAL & JUDAIC STUDIES
Dedicated to delivering the latest news, features, editorials, commentary, archaeological interpretation and excavations relevant to the study of the Bible for the public and biblical scholars.
Free PDF downloads of overviews/introductions of various books of the Bible provided by Virginia Theological Seminary.
Informative website devoted to teaching the Bible and the discipline of Biblical Studies
Passage, Keyword, and Topical search through various versions and translations of the Bible.
This site is for Bible students who are looking for detailed information on the
history of the canon, texts, textual criticism, and versions of Scripture. A great site for researching Bible translation.
Luther Productions helps you tackle general knowledge of the Bible.
Searchable biblical art on the web.
An internet resource for studying the Bible.
Research tools for the study of the Bible.
Educational Resources in the Evangelical tradition given by respected professor’s.
An Aggregate of Blogs Geared toward Biblical Studies.
Yale Divinity Library.
Prof. Fontaine is the Taylor Professor of Biblical Theology and History at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, MA.
A website for the Academic study of the Bible and Theology.
A useful biblical studies glossary.
A digital library of Jewish writings from the Tanakh, Deuterocanon/Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus, and the Talmud.
Official Site of the History Channel’s 2-hour documentary on the Exodus.
Professor Ronald L. Troxel of University of Wisconsin has compiled a helpful glossary of terms for those that wish to tackle the study of the Hebrew Bible.
As a part of Yale University’s Open Course program, Robert F. and Patricia Ross Weis Professor of Religious Studies, Christine Hayes, delivers an university-level Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. It includes (24) 50-minute class lectures.
Virginia Theological Seminary.
The largest freely available archive of online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.
iTanakh was begun in June 2000 as an effort to index internet resources that might be of use in the academic study and teaching of the Hebrew Bible.
The entire original 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, containing over 15,000 articles.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Judaic Studies Program at Princeton University.
The Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of thirteen ancient codices containing over fifty texts, was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945. The collection contains books such a the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth.
University of Delaware. Compilation of Internet resources for Jewish Studies.
Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies and chair of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University.
Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies and chair of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University.
Excellent resource for all things Jewish.
Online bar/bat mitzvah tutor.
PBS Series.
Updated and maintained by Patricia Hardesty.
An online publication of the Society of Biblical Literature.
Hebrew University, Jerusalem
A wealth of resources at your fingertips.
As put forth by Bruce N. Fisk (following Shaye J. D. Cohen)
Electronic Resources for the Study of the Septuagint and the Old Greek Versions.
Jewish Lectures.
No explanation needed.
Professor of New Testament Studies at Duke University, Dr. Mark Goodacre’s, award winning web directory of internet resources on the New Testament, currently being updated daily.
A website dedicated to the New Perspective on Paul and the scholarly contributions of E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, and N.T. Wright.
Surveys proposed solutions and provides a clearing-house for materials related to its resolution.
Internet Guide to Religion.
Charles Conroy’s bibliographic works.
GRECO-ROMAN AND EARLY CHRISTIAN ORIGINS
A digital library of hundreds of classic Christian writings from Calvin College.
Dr. James Crossley’s Blog. Lecturer on Christian origins and early Judaism at the University of Sheffield, UK.
Early Christian Writings is the most complete collection of documents from the first two centuries with translations and commentary. Includes the New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, and Church Fathers. The “Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers”
- Early Judeo-Christian texts, NT Wrong’s List of
NT Wrong has compiled a seemingly exhaustive list of ancient texts and their approximate dates as represented by scholarly consensus.
The largest freely available archive of online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.
Convened in 1985 by Robert W. Funk, the Jesus Seminar has become a lightning rod for international debate about the “historical Jesus.” The Jesus Seminar Forum is an introduction to the research of the Jesus Seminar of the Westar Institute & a bridge to Jesus scholarship on line.
The Gnostic Society Library.
Duke University Professor, Mark Goodacre’s site on anything and everything connected to the study of the New Testament and Christian Origins.
Yale University Divinity School’s reference tools and bibliographies.
Focuses on the early Christian writings and their social world.
A website dedicated to the New Perspective on Paul and the scholarly contributions of E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, and N.T. Wright.
Surveys proposed solutions and provides a clearing-house for materials related to its resolution.
THEOLOGY & LITURGY
Contains articles mainly by students of Boston University Modern Western Theology seminars.
The Center for Process Studies (CPS) is a research center of Claremont School of Theology, and affiliated with Claremont Graduate University. CPS seeks to promote the common good by means of the relational approach found in process thought.
Bryan Stone’s (Boston University) theology web page.
Best podcast out there in the emerging style. Tripp Fuller and Chad Crawford talk theology with the biggest and the best in the field.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) was founded in 1995 as a non-profit organization to provide open access to detailed, peer-reviewed scholarly information on key topics and philosophers in all areas of philosophy.
The largest freely available archive of online books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric on the Internet. The site is dedicated to religious tolerance and scholarship, and has the largest readership of any similar site on the web.
Kept by the University of Nebraska, this site uses contemporary film to extract theological conversations.
Out In Scripture is a collection of over 175 conversations about the Bible. With the skilled help of 100 diverse scholars and pastors, from over 11 different denominations, you will discover a fresh approach to Scripture. Here you can be honest, question and go deeper. Out in Scripture is a great devotional resource as you consider your life of faith and put that faith into action. It is also especially helpful for preachers preparing sermons based on the Revised Common Lectionary.
More than 6,000 chapters of prominent works by scholars of religion, theology, biblical studies, and more for absolutely free!
The Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology seeks to promote inquiry at the intersection of philosophy and theology, through the study of phenomenology, deconstruction, feminism, Radical Orthodoxy, and related fields.
A website sponsored by the Irish Theological Association. It contains works and biographies of major theologians, ethicists, and spiritualists. It also explores ecumenism and religion and society.
An internet resource for studying Christian Theology.
As made available by Vanderbilt Divinity Library. Includes Years A, B, and C.
*A noteworthy compilation of internet resources:
Phil Harland’s Online Resources for the Study of Ancient Religions and Cultures
Professor at York University, Toronto, CA.
***Mark Hoffman, an Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, has mentioned a noteworthy list of books related to the Biblical Studies field that can be downloaded free of charge compiled by Bob Buller and Danny Zacharias in his Dec. 10 2008 post. The website may be accessed here.
*** The Teaching Company offers numerous courses concerning biblical studies, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, History of Christianity, Philosophy, Theology, etc. and features leading scholars in their respected fields delivering the lectures, such as Bart D. Ehrman, et al.
*** The Society of Biblical Literature has compiled numerous syllabi concerning many subfields of biblical studies that may aid one in class preparation. It may be accessed here.
*** The American Academy of Religion has also compiled a similar bank of syllabi and it may be accessed here.
***ALL INTERFAITH RESOURCES MAY BE ACCESSED HERE.
Non-Virtual Study Tools
I would recommend the Interpretation Commentary Set for aiding in teaching or preaching within a church setting. The series provides wonderful biblical theological insights and ways of bringing the texts alive, while upholding its integrity.
For research in Biblical Studies I cannot recommend The Anchor Bible Dictionary enough as being an invaluable tool necessary for academic study, along with its commentary and reference series published by Yale.
If your needs illicit an academic style that’s not too weighty and you don’t want to give up space for theological reflection, I would recommend the The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Set.
My Bible of choice: Michael D. Coogan’s The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Augmented Third Edition, NRSV (a 4th ed. was released in 2010). Also a good JPS version is essential. An esteemed translation of the Torah is Everett Fox’s The Five Books of Moses.
To see more about the New Revised Standard Version and its scholarly formation, I direct you to this page provided by The National Council of Churches.
Jun 23, 2011 @ 18:46:02
Do you have any details as to the legitimacy or otherwise of Lew White and his writings, in particular, “Fossilized Customs.” As a New Zealander I have never heard of him before [being an American he ought to be well known there] but he is upsetting and misleading some believers in this country. They have been saying this man has all the truth and encourages people to leave what they know and follow his writings [and himself no doubt]. Is there a site or a Hebrew scholar who can refute or affirm his beliefs, his naming of the Messiah, and other matters?