Free Online Resources for Biblical Studies

Palimpsest manuscript on vellum in Free Online Resources for Biblical Studies

Palimpsest manuscript on vellum in Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Greek and Syriac from Codex Climaci Rescriptus, (4th-9th century)

The list below outlines free online resources for Biblical Studies that can assist students and scholars with their work and research.

For a list of free online resources regarding Biblical Hebrew, click here.

For a list of free online resources in Jewish-Christian studies, click here.

ARTEFACTS, GEOCODING & ARCHAEOLOGY

Artefacts of Ancient Judaism Manuscript Collections
This allows users to browse scholarly commentary, bibliographies and images from ancient manuscripts.

Bible Geocoding
Part of the OpenBible.info website, this page locates every identifiable place mentioned in the Bible by using Google Earth (KMZ).

Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land (DAAHL)
DAAHL has brought together experts in information technology and the archaeology of the Holy Land to create a digital atlas.

ART & IMAGERY

Ancient World Image Bank (AWIB)
The AWIB is a collaborative effort to distribute and encourage the sharing of free digital imagery for the study of the ancient world.

Art and the Bible
This site offers background information on famous paintings and Biblical themes. The collection includes hundreds of pictures of paintings and links them to their corresponding passage in the Bible.

Biblical Art on the WWW
Norwegian theologian and school teacher, Rolf E. Stærk, has created a helpful assistant to search for Biblical art on the Internet. The main content of his site is a database accompanied by a collection of thumbnail pictures.

Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative (CDRI)
This database provides access to digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, coins, maps, sermons and much more.

JOURNALS, BIBLIOGRAPHIES & NOTES

Biblical Studies on the WEB (BSW)
This site publishes the electronic version of Biblica, The Pontifical Biblical Institute Journal, and Filología Neotestamentaria. The latter is a collection of journals put by the the University of Córdoba.

Gershom Scholem’s Milon HaZohar Card Index
The catalogue contains personal notes that Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) took in anticipation of the future writing of a Zohar lexicon.

Index Theologicus (IxTheo)
This site is a comprehensive bibliography for theology and religious studies.

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS)
This is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal established in 1996. It fosters scholarly research on the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Israel’s History and cognate fields of studies.

Scripture Bulletin
The Scripture Bulletin is a peer-reviewed journal published twice yearly by the Catholic Biblical Society of Great Britain.

TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism
This is a peer-reviewed electronic journal dedicated to the study of the Jewish and Christian Biblical texts.

ONLINE BIBLES, TALMUDIC STUDIES & RABBINIC COMMENTARY

academic-bible.com – The Scholarly Bible Portal of the German Bible Society
These online Bibles are the official Internet editions of individual academic Biblical texts. Here you will find the Biblia Hebraica, Septuagint, Vulgate and many others.

Bialystoker Synagogue Online Library
This library contains links to a large variety of Jewish texts. They include the Tanakh, Rashi’s classic commentary, Talmudic manuscripts, the Mishnah Torah and much more.

Mechon Mamre
Users can access the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the RaMBaM’s Complete Restatement of the Oral Law (Mishneh Torah).

PAPYRI & CODICES

Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM)
This online resource provides images of various papyri manuscripts, including the Chester Beatty Papyri.

Codex Gigas
The National Library in Stockholm’s website contains a digitized version of every page of the Codex Gigas manuscript. You can also read commentaries on its history, texts, script, initials and decoration.

Codex Sinaiticus
This website features all extant pages of the Codex Sinaiticus. This contains the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament.

Codices Electronici Sangallenses (CESG)
CESG provides access to medieval codices and selected early modern manuscripts in the Abbey Library of St. Gallen.

Duke Papyrus Archive
The Duke Papyrus Archive provides electronic access to texts about and images of nearly 1400 papyri from ancient Egypt.

DEAD SEA SCROLLS & CAIRO GENIZAH

Cambridge Digital Library
This library has a large collection of digitized manuscripts, including the Taylor-Schechter Cairo Genizah Collection and various Hebrew manuscripts.

Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project
Users can access the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule Scroll, the Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, the Temple Scroll and the War Scroll.

Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (FJMS)
FJMS has digitized documents primarily relating to the Genizah fragments, manuscripts and early printings.

Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library
This site has published the entire Dead Sea Scrolls collection online.

SYRIAC STUDIES

Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
This digital library promotes the study and preservation of the Syriac heritage and language.

Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts (CPART)
CPART is devoted to the recovery, study, preservation and publication of Syriac literature and other ancient texts. It focuses on advancing the study of the Bible and its context, early Christianity and the Christian East.

Digital Syriac Corpus
The Digital Syriac Corpus is an online repository for digitized editions of Syriac texts.

e-GEDSH
e-GEDSH is an electronic version of the 2011 edition of the Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage.

syri.ac – University of Oklahoma
This website is a comprehensive annotated bibliography of open-access resources related to the study of Syriac.

Syriaca.org
This collaborative research project publishes reference works about the culture, history and literature of ancient and present Syriac communities.

MANUCRIPTS & TEXTS

Hebrew

BenSira.Org
The website focuses on the ancient and medieval Hebrew manuscripts of the Book of Ben Sira.

British Library’s Digitized Hebrew Collection
The collection features Hebrew and Yiddish digitized manuscripts, many of which are illuminated.

National Library of Israel (NLI)
NLI’s online catalogue includes records to digitized Hebrew manuscripts online (post-dating the Dead Sea Scrolls).

Princeton University Sefer Hasidim Database (PUSHD)
The PUSHD database includes fourteen manuscripts containing different versions of the Sefer Hasidim (Book of the Pious) and its fragments. Access to these manuscripts is free but requires one to register.

Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha

Online Critical Pseudepigrapha
Here you will find electronic editions of the best critical texts of the “Old Testament” Pseudepigrapha and related literature.

Wesley Center Online
This site has a Noncanonical Literature page, which has a collection of sacred ancient texts. They include the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha and other literature such as the writings of Josephus and Philo of Alexandria.

Patristics

Early Christian Writings
Early Christian Writings has the most complete collection of Christian texts before the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

Fathers of the Church
New Advent has published the English translations of the writings of the Church Fathers on their site. The Liturgies of James, Mark and the Blessed Apostles and writings, such as documents from the Councils, are also available.

Patristic Text Archive
This archive of ancient Christian texts also has translations of Patristic texts in all modern languages.

Medieval

Corpus Corporum – University of Zurich
This site is a Latin text repository of Medieval Latin texts. It includes the entire Patrologia Latina, the Vulgate and other medieval and Neo-Latin collections.

Digital Newberry
The Newberry’s digital collection includes two collections of interest: Polyglots: The Bible in Multiple Tongues, 1502-1657 and The Bible in Print.

e-codices – Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland
This virtual library has medieval and early modern manuscripts from public and church-owned and private collections.

Gutenberg Digital
This site published digitized versions of the Göttingen Gutenberg Bible, the Göttingen Model Book and the Helmasperger Notarial Instrument.

Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML)
HMML holds works of art and rare printed books from the Middle Ages to the present. It is home to The Saint John’s Bible, the first handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by Benedictine Abbey.

Parker Library on the Web
The online manuscript collection includes such books as the sixth-century St. Augustine Gospels, the Bury Bible and the autographed copy of Matthew Paris’ Chronica maiora.

Sinai Palimpsests Project
This website provides access to high-quality images and descriptive metadata created by the Sinai Palimpsests Project. This project is recovering the erased layers of writing in palimpsest manuscripts kept by the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery.

Vatican Library of Digitized Manuscripts
This is the Vatican Library’s digitized collections of manuscripts and incunabula, mostly from the Middle Age and Humanistic period.

OTHER RESOURCES

4 Enoch
A comprehensive and authoritative introduction to scholarship and fiction in Second Temple Judaism.

Al HaTorah
This study resource helps the learner appreciate the breadth and depth of the Biblical text and its commentaries. It does this through texts, techniques and reference tools. The site provides access to Ancient Near Eastern documents; medieval commentaries; and modern art and literature.

Catholic Resources for Bible, Liturgy, Art, and Theology
Father Felix Just has created an extensive and impressive website that contains a variety of materials, mostly related to Biblical and liturgical studies.

Coptic SCRIPTORIUM
This site is a platform for interdisciplinary and computational research in texts in the Coptic language, particularly the Sahidic dialect.

Jewish Roots of Eastern Mysticism
This contains the ongoing research seminar of graduate students at the department of theology of Marquette University and other participants from various scholarly communities.

Oriental Institute Publication Program
The Oriental Institute has published scientific and popular reports on the results of the Institute’s research and activities in the Near East.

Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL)
A select database of digital books relating to the development of theology and philosophy from the late 15th to 18th centuries.

Sephardic Studies Collection at the University of Washington
This is a repository of source materials pertaining to the Sephardic Jewish experience.

TheTorah.com
TheTorah.com solicits original works of scholarship from noted academics, intellectuals and rabbis from across the world.