How About Bible Commentaries and Other Resources Online?
Although there are Bible commentaries on the Web, the new ones might not be scholarly, and the others are quite old. The well-known publishers of current scholarly commentaries generally do not make their publications available as free ebooks.
It is always a good idea to consult with your professor before using Web sources. Here are some websites that link to classic works of Bible commentary or provide other useful links for Bible research.
Bear in mind that most of the texts at the websites below are hypertexts of either scholarly or professional sources. They have been manually typed into web documents. There may be errors. The sites have editorial authority, so they are better than wikis, but serious textual scholars will want to consult digitized or authenticated primary sources instead of hypertexts.
A few ways to evaluate the quality of a website:
- Find the owner/author/editor’s credentials on an “About Us” page.
- Is it a personal website? Who is the host?
- Look carefully at any advertising and outbound links on the website.
- Consider the website’s publication date.
- Look for attribution/documentation.
- Baylor University takes a close look at critical / exegetical commentaries. http://researchguides.baylor.edu/content.php?pid=74584&sid=564223
- Catholic Resources, curated by Felix Just, S.J., Ph.D., Loyola Institute for Spirituality http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/index.html
- Christian Classics Ethereal Library, a collection of hyper-texts maintained at Calvin College. http://www.ccel.org/
- Graduate Theological Union Library mostly free exegetical resources. http://libguides.gtu.edu/Internetresources
- The New Testament Gateway, the award-winning web directory of internet resources on the New Testament. http://www.ntgateway.com/
- Post Reformation Digital Library, a select database of digital books relating to the development of theology and philosophy during the Reformation and Post-Reformation/Early Modern Era (late 15th-18th c.). http://www.prdl.org/
- Review of Biblical Literature is maintained by the Society of Biblical Literature, and is a finding tool just for book reviews. Use the search strategies described on pp. 2-3 of this hand-out. http://bookreviews.org/search_now.asp
- Wabash Center / Internet Guide to Religion, a web directory created and sustained by grants from Lilly Endowment Inc., to strengthen and enhance education in North American theological schools, colleges and universities. https://atla.libguides.com/wor
