Religious studies: Find primary sources
This guide is intended to help students, faculty, and researchers locate and access sources and reference tools for the study of religions.
Primary sources
Biblical studies and premodern texts
- Acta sanctorum databaseDatabase contains the complete Acta sanctorum, including all prefatory material, original texts, critical apparatus and indexes ... comprises the works published over a period of three hundred years by the Société des Bollandistes ... materials on the lives of the saints from the beginning of the Christian era to the end of the sixteenth century.
- Alberti Magni e-corpusSearchable and downloadable critical editions of the works of Albert the Great (ca. 1200-1280).
- Bible in EnglishContains twenty-one different versions of the English Bible. In addition to twelve complete Bibles, there are five texts that comprise New Testaments only, two that contain just the Gospels, and William Tyndale's translations of the Pentateuch, Jonah and New Testament.
- Bibliotheca Teubneriana LatinaThe BTL Online database provides electronic access to all editions of Latin texts published in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana, ranging from antiquity and late antiquity to medieval and neo-Latin texts.
- Codices electronici SangallensesManuscripts in Latin or old high German from the Abbey Library of St. Gallen
- Corpus ThomisticumThe Corpus Thomisticum project aims to provide scholars with a set of instruments of research on Thomas Aquinas, freely available via Internet. It has five parts: a full edition of the complete works of St. Thomas according, where possible, to the best critical texts; a bibliography covering all the studies on Aquinas and his doctrine, from the 13th century through our days; an index of the main tools of Thomistic research, and the edition of the most important among them; a database management system, implemented to search, compare, and sort words, phrases, quotations, similitudes, correlations, and statistical information; a digital edition of the main manuscripts of Aquinas' works.
- Early English books onlineCollection of digitized English books from approximately 1475-1700.
- Early European books: printed sources to 1700Diverse array of printed sources from the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Opens the door to some of the world's most significant collections of early printed books. All works printed in Europe before 1701, regardless of language, fall within the scope of the project, together with all pre-1701 works in European languages printed further afield.
- Library of Latin textsGeneral database of Christian Latin texts; a computerized Patrology covering the period from the late 2nd century to the 15th century.
- Parker Library on the webAn interactive, web-based workspace designed to support use and study of the manuscripts in the historic Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Includes a number of Bibles and other religious texts.
- Patrologia Latina databaseThis final release of the Patrologia Latina database represents a complete electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne's Patrologia Latina (1844-1855 and 1862-1865), a comprehensive collection of the writings of the early Church Fathers.
- Patrologia OrientalisThe Patrologia Orientalis Database (POD) a collection of patristic texts from the Christian East, including works, recorded in non-Latin languages, that come from geographical, cultural, or religious contexts somehow linked to Rome or the Eastern Roman Empire. This initial version of the database allows users to access texts included in the Patrologia Orientalis (PO) in two forms: the original text, available as a PDF file, and a searchable translation. The user can search for items (such as keywords or quotes) in the language into which a text was translated in the PO.
- The Leon Levy Dead Sea scrolls digital libraryDigitized virtual library of the Dead Sea Scrolls, containing hundreds of manuscripts.
- The Richard Rufus of Cornwall projectCritical editions of the works of early scholastic philosopher-theologian Richard Rufus of Cornwall.
- Thesaurus Linguae Graecae: a digital library of Greek literatureFull-text database of primary sources covering Greek literature from Homer (eighth century B.C.) until the closing of the Academy (sixth century (A.D.)
- Thesaurus Linguae LatinaeThe Thesaurus Linguae Latinae is the first comprehensive dictionary of ancient Latin.
- Thesaurus Precum Latinarum: Treasury of Latin PrayersPresents a collection of Latin prayers grouped by category: Basics, Creeds, the Triune God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and Confession. English translations are provided.
- Ut per litteras apostolicas: papal lettersThe Papal Letters database is a digital version of 13th and 14th century papal letters from the secret Vatican archive in Rome.
Early modern and contemporary sources
- Digital library of classic Protestant textsDigital editions of early texts related to the Reformed, Lutheran, and English traditions of Protestantism.
- Nineteenth Century collections onlineThis database of digitized primary source materials includes a collection on "Religion, Society, Spirituality and Reform."
Missionary studies: records and archives
- Church Missionary Society archiveContains a large collection of source materials related to the Church Missionary Society, founded in 1799 as an Anglican evangelical movement and still active today. It includes records of both the CMS and the many other missionary societies which have become associated or amalgamated with it over its lifetime. Highlights include: Central records of the CMS and papers of key individuals associated with it; Records of the the Loochoo Naval Mission (1843-1864), the first recorded Anglican and Protestant mission in Japan; Archive of the Society for Promoting Female Education in China, India and the East; Records of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society.
- Church Missionary Society periodicalsCollection of digitized periodicals from the Church Missionary Society Archive, spanning more than two hundred years of history.
- Ghana and Sierra Leone in colonial and missionary records, 1700-1850Records documenting missionary activity on the Gold Coast in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- Ghana in records from colonial missionaries, 1886-1951Contains material drawn from the archives of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, documenting missionary activity in West Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
- Missionary studiesThese primary sources are a hugely important resource for the study of missionary work, educational work, medical work, evangelism, political conflict, and the emergence of indigenous churches. The collections are truly global in scope, with Africa, East and South Asia, Australasia and the Pacific, and the Americas all well-represented. The sources will be of interest to scholars in a range of fields, from missiology to colonial history and anthropology.
- South Africa in records from colonial missionaries, 1819-1900Collection of materials from the archives of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which was active in South Africa from 1821 onward.
- Last Updated: Oct 16, 2024 2:46 PM
- URL: https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion
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