LibGuides: Freely Available Online Resources: Online Texts

Online Texts

African American Literature in the Humanities Commons
An open access collection in CORE. Learn more about CORE, Commons Open Repository Exchange, a library-quality repository for sharing, discovering, retrieving, and archiving digital work. https://hcommons.org/core/what-is-core/
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Humanities Commons is a trusted, nonprofit network where humanities scholars can create a professional profile, discuss common interests, develop new publications, and share their work. The Humanities Commons network is open to anyone.
The Albert Cook Outler Papers: Online Exhibition
The Albert Cook Outler Papers comprise the largest and one of the most significant archival collections at Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, SMU. Dr. Outler (1908-1989) was a world-renowned theologian and Wesley scholar. Through this exhibition Bridwell Library is bringing Albert Outler’s intellectual legacy to the attention of a new generation of scholars and church leaders.
Bible Suite: Online Bible, Concordance, Topical, Strong's, Greek & Hebrew
Parallel translations, lessons, commentaries and other resources from the Online Parallel Bible Project
Biblindex
Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions in Early Christian Literature (Best viewed with Firefox or Safari browsers)
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Data from the published volumes of Biblia Patristica, Index des citations et allusions bibliques dans la littérature patristique, Editions du CNRS (ca. 270,000 biblical references, with updates on 5,000 references), prepared by the Centre for Patristics Analysis and Documentation (CADP) : 1. Beginnings to Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, 1975 - 2. The third century (except Origen), 1977 - 3. Origen, 1980 - 4. Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius of Salamis, 1987 - 5. Basil of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Amphiloque of Iconium, 1991 - 6. Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Ambrosiaster, 1995 - 7. Didymus of Alexandria, 2000 - Supplement, Philo of Alexandria, 1982. [They all are all out of print.]
- Unpublished data from the archives of Biblia Patristica (ca. 100,000 references) on Athanasius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Theodoret of Cyrus, Procopius of Gaza, Jerome: these data are unverified (they appear in red).
Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity
"...an electronic database containing the essential biographical facts of Chinese and foreign Christian missionaries, church leaders, evangelists, and laity chiefly responsible for laying the foundations and advancing the growth of Chinese Christian communities and their influence in societies around the world. While the database is widely inclusive of time periods and faith traditions, the distinctive focus of the project is on the lesser-known Chinese Christians of the modern era (1800 to 1950)."
Books@Atla Open Press
"Books@Atla Open Press publishes open access works on subjects at the intersection of librarianship and religious and theological studies that potentially impact libraries."
Brill Open E-Book Collection
Open Access (free) eBooks from Brill
British Library 19th Century Collection (BL)
This collection was made open access in January 2021. It contains digitized versions of more than 65,000 out-of-copyright editions from the 19th century, spanning the years 1789-1914, and covering a variety of subjects including philosophy and church history. More details about the digitization project
British Library: Digitised Manuscripts
"Use this website to view digitised copies of manuscripts and archives in the British Library’s collections, with descriptions of their contents. Explore the Library's latest major acquisition, the St Cuthbert Gospel. Some other highlights include the Harley Golden Gospels, Beowulf, the Silos Apocalypse, Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebook, the Petit Livre d’Amour and the Golf Book."
Building Knowledge, Breaking Barriers Student Exhibit
From 2019 into 2021, eight current and former Community College of Philadelphia students worked collaboratively with two professional exhibitors, a project videographer, and three Presbyterian Historical Society staff members to reveal parts of the PHS archive that meant the most to them. The exhibit team’s work occurred against a backdrop of historic events that archives like PHS will document for decades to come: Covid-19 and the nationwide protests for racial justice.
Cambridge Digital Library - Christian Works
In this selection University of Cambridge presents some of its library's finest Christian manuscripts and early printed books, spanning over 1000 years of worship and debate and reflecting both Church ceremonial and private devotion.
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Freely available translations of classic Christian literature including John Calvin's commentaries and patristic texts. The mission of the CCEL is to build up the church by making classic Christian writings available and promoting their use.
Classical Language Toolkit
"The Classical Language Toolkit (CLTK) offers natural language processing support for Classical languages. In some areas, it extends the NLTK. The goals of the Classical Language Toolkit (CLTK) are to: compile analysis-friendly corpora in a variety of Classical languages (currently available for Chinese, Coptic, Greek, Latin, Pali, and Tibetan); gather, improve, and generate linguistic data required for NLP (Greek and Latin are in progress, with more in the pipeline); develop a free and open platform for generating reproducible, scientific research that advances the study of the languages and literatures of the ancient world."
Codex Sinaiticus
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. Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars, conservators and curators, the Project gives everyone the opportunity to connect directly with this famous manuscript.

Complete Works of John Calvin
Large collection of Reformation writings including but not limited to the collected works of John Calvin. CUNITZ, Edouard, BAUM, Johann-Wilhelm, REUSS, Eduard Wilhelm Eugen, (eds.). Joannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia. Brunsvigae : C.A. Schwetschke, 1863. Series also available in print.

Continuatio Mediaevalis | Corpus Christianorum
Texts from the Carolingian era to the end of the Middle Ages. It also includes works absent from Migne’s Patrologia Latina. Includes a complete transcription (by Princeton Seminary Professor Emeritus Karlfried Froehlich) of the commentary on the Pauline Epistles by Gilbert of Poitiers (ca 1080-1154) from MS Zwettl 58, together with an Introduction.
Corpus Christianorum
This project produces critical editions of texts (primarily Latin and Greek texts) by Christian authors from Late Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Included in this work is Continuatio Mediaevalis, also linked in this guide.
Corpus Corporum
A Latin text (meta-)repository and tool under way of development. Users should take into account that many functions do not yet work satisfactorily. This Corpus Córporum is being developed at the University of Zurich under the direction of Ph. Roelli, Institute of Medieval Latin Studies. About Corpus Córporum. Of particular note is the searchable Patrologia Latina.
Corpus Thomisticum
The Corpus Thomisticum project aims to provide scholars with a set of instruments of research on Thomas Aquinas, freely available via Internet.
Correspondence of the Swiss Reformer Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575)
Searchable, online edition, from the Institut für Schweizerische Reformationsgeschichte
Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity Database
"The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity database is making readily accessible and searchable as much as possible of the early evidence for the cult of Christian saints (up to around AD 700), with key texts presented in their original language, all with English translation and brief contextual commentary....The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity database is one of the results of a major project funded by the European Research Council (under Grant Agreement Number 340540) and based primarily at the University of Oxford, with substantial collaboration from the University of Warsaw and further collaboration from the University of Reading. For further information: http://cultofsaints.history.ox.ac.uk/"

Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative
Cuneiform inscriptions dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3350 BC, until the end of the pre-Christian era. Data set consists of text and image, combining document transliterations, text glossaries and digitized originals and photo archives of cuneiform. A joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Oxford, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.
Terms of Use: https://cdli.ucla.edu/?q=terms-of-use Support for the project has been generously provided by the Mellon Foundation, the NSF, the NEH, the IMLS, and by the MPS, Oxford and UCLA; network services are from UCLA’s Center for Digital Humanities.
Digital Lending at Wright Library
Through its digitization partnership with Internet Archive, Wright Library has digitized books for online access that previously could only be checked out in person. These books can be borrowed digitally by one person at a time, for a limited time period. Use the link above to find all such digitized books, and visit Borrowing from the Lending Library, https://help.archive.org/help/borrowing-from-the-lending-library/, for more information.

Digital Library of Abraham Kuyper
The Digital Library of Abraham Kuyper contains Kuyper's complete archive (over 100,000 pages), along with a comprehensive collection of his published works. This project has been developed in cooperation with the Historical Documentation Centre for Dutch Protestantism at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where the physical archive is housed.
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To discover other digital collections at Princeton Theological Seminary Library, visit https://library.ptsem.edu/digital-collections-overview
Directory of Open Access Books (Religion)
The Directory of Open Access Books is a service of OAPEN Foundation. The OAPEN Foundation is an international initiative dedicated to Open Access monograph publishing, based at the National Library in The Hague.
Directory of Open Access Journals
Includes journals belonging to the subject of religion
Free Public Domain Ebooks and Audio Books
25 sources of free public domain books (ebooks and audio books) from Ebook Friendly, a site "founded and designed by Piotr Kowalczyk, self-publisher, author of short stories for geeks and an enthusiast of ebooks and digital reading."
http://ebookfriendly.com/about/

Freedom on the Move : Rediscovering the Stories of Self-Liberating People
Database of fugitives from North American slavery. Joint effort of Cornell University, Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research, Cornell University Library, The University of Alabama, The University of New Orleans, University of Kentucky and The Ohio State University.

Gifford Lecture Series
One of the foremost lecture series dealing with religion, science and philosophy. The online Gifford Lectures database presents a comprehensive collection of books derived from the Gifford Lectures. In addition to the books, the Web site contains a biography of each lecturer and a summary of the lecture or book.
GlossaOrdinaria.net: Handlist of Mediaeval Manuscripts of the Glossa Ordinaria on the Bible
From Professor Emeritus Karlfried Froehlich of Princeton Seminary and Dr. Mark Zier (Mediaeval Studies License, PIMS; Ph.D., University of Toronto). Parallels the PDF file Codices Glossae in apparatibus allegati (GLOSSEM). While there is some overlap between the two inventories, it would be worth the time to consult both in pursuing research on the Glossa Ordinaria.
The Grand Itinerant - George Whitefield at 300: Digital Exhibit
A key figure in colonial America's religious Great Awakening, George Whitefield, 1714-1770, preached to huge crowds held spellbound by his dramatic oratory. He is considered by many to have been a master at merging the sacred with the temporal, bringing his message of spiritual renewal to the marketplace. His was an agile ministry that moved outside when indoor gatherings grew perilous. Data driven, he collected and touted participation metrics to the local press. Special Collections at the Theodore Sedgwick Wright Library holds several items pertaining to Whitefield's ministry, including his hand-written journal dating 1744-1746. This exhibit was curated by former Princeton Theological Seminary Digital Archivist Jackie Rider.
Guide to Early Church Documents
Guide to freely-available online resources relating to the early church, including canonical documents, creeds, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers and other historical texts relevant to church history.
IndoChina1911
This digital library contains hundreds of historical documents pertaining to the Body of Christ in Indochina over the past 100 years.
International Mission Board Archives
Digitized assets include periodicals, correspondence, board minutes, and annual reports. The mission of the Archives and Records of the International Mission Board is to identify, organize, and preserve information that details the Southern Baptist international missions experience.
Jonathan Edwards
A digital learning environment for research, education and publication, that presents all of Edwards’s writings, along with helpful editorial materials - From the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University
JSTOR eBooks: Open Access
Freely available ebooks for anyone in the world to use. Each ebook carries one of six Creative Commons licenses determined by the publisher. An initial set of titles is available from four publishers: University of California Press, University of Michigan Press, UCL Press, and Cornell University Press. JSTOR expects to add many more titles.
Karl Barth Resource Guide | Center for Barth Studies
Published November 9, 2021. Provided by the Center for Barth Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary
Koran in English
This is an electronic version of The Holy Qur'an, translated by M.H. Shakir and published by Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc., in 1983. The text was provided by the Online Book Initiative and subsequently marked up at the HTI in SGML.
Ktiv, the International Collection of Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts
The vision of the International Collection of Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts is to allow readers across the globe to access the complete corpus of existing Hebrew manuscripts. Founded by The National Library of Israel in partnership with The Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society.

Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität
Foremost lexicographical resource in Byzantine Studies mainly covering the period from the 4th to the 15th century A.D. taken from more than 3,000 texts. This online version of the LBG is the result of the collaboration between the Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Die Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften) and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) at the University of California, Irvine.

Logeion (ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ)
Logeion (literally, a place for words; in particular, a speaker's platform, or an archive) was developed after the example of dvlf.uchicago.edu, to provide simultaneous lookup of entries in the many reference works that make up the Perseus Classical collection. Includes the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources as well as several other Greek and Latin dictionaries.

Monastic Manuscript Project
Descriptions of manuscripts that contain texts relevant for the study of early medieval monasticism, especially monastic rules, ascetic treatises, vitae patrum-texts and texts related to monastic reforms. Lists of manuscripts for each of these texts are linked to manuscript descriptions.
Supported by the Institute for Research in the Humanities, Copyright Albrecht Diem & Will May

Oxford Dictionaries (Free account)
This resource includes English dictionary and thesaurus, grammar tips and usage guidance, spoken audio pronunciations, and more.
Papyri.info
Includes some of the papyri held by Princeton Theological Seminary. The Papyrological Navigator (PN) supports searching, browsing, and aggregation of ancient papyrological documents and related materials; while the Papyrological Editor (PE) enables multi-author, version controlled, peer reviewed scholarly curation of papyrological texts, translations, commentary, scholarly metadata, institutional catalog records, bibliography, and images. Partners include APIS, DDbDP, HGV, BP, Trismegistos and APD
Parvum lexicon stemmatologicum
A "scholarly digital resource providing explanations for technical terms related to stemmatology, a discipline of classical and mediaeval philology aiming at understanding the historical evolution of textual traditions."
PAVONe - Platform of the Arabic Versions of the New Testament
"PAVONe is an online database comprising a corpus of digitized and transcribed Arabic manuscripts of the four Gospels copied between the 9th and 19th centuries. The corpus includes the verses of the Gospels transmitted to us in the manuscript tradition (continuous text, lectionaries, etc.) and as citations in other writings (writings of Church Fathers, liturgical texts, Arabic and Islamic literature, etc.). The corpus will include allusions of Gospels in different types of writings (Arabic poetry, apologetic literature, etc.)."
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.) from major research libraries, independent scholarly initiatives, and corporate documentation projects
Princeton Lectures on Youth, Church, and Culture
The Princeton Lectures on Youth, Church, and Culture foster original scholarship pertaining to youth and the contemporary church. This lecture series, begun in 1996, is sponsored by The Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary. The lectures are fully searchable and can be read online or downloaded as PDF documents.
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To discover other digital collections at Princeton Theological Seminary Library, visit https://library.ptsem.edu/digital-collections-overview

Princeton Theological Seminary Journals
A digitized collection of journals published by, or closely associated with, Princeton Theological Seminary from 1825 to the present.

Titles include: Biblical Repertory, The Princeton Theological Review, The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Studies in Reformed Theology and History, and Princeton Seminary Bulletin, as well as inSpire, Wineskin, Catalogue of Princeton Theological Seminary and a number of other historical publications.

Puritan Books Online
Puritan Books hosted by Regent College and Carey Theological College's Allison Library
Readings from the Roots
The Revised Common Lectionary in a new translation that aims to reflect these readings’ original historical contexts and so expresses the theological and social meanings they had for those who originally wrote and read them.
Religion Online
Articles and chapters whose topics include Old and New Testament, Theology, Ethics, History and Sociology of Religion, Communication and Cultural Studies, Pastoral Care, Counseling, Homiletics, Worship, Missions and Religious Education - From the Claremont School of Theology
Resources on Faith, Ethics, and Public Life
An overview of major religious traditions and their role in politics and society around the world from Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs
Sefaria
Sefaria is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building the future of Jewish learning in an open and participatory way by assembling a free living library of Jewish texts and their interconnections, in Hebrew and in translation.

South Asia Open Archives (SAOA)
Subset of the South Asia Materials Project (SAMP) that creates and maintains a collection of open access materials for the study of South Asia. Curated collections include Caste & Social Structure, Literature, Social & Economic History, and Women & Gender.

Syriac Institute
Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute seeks to promote the study and preservation of the Syriac heritage and language, and to facilitate opportunities for people to pursue the study of this ancient legacy globally. We aim to serve the academic community and the heirs of the heritage.
Theological Commons | Princeton Theological Seminary
The Theological Commons is a digital library of over 160,000 resources on theology and religion. It contains books, journals, audio recordings, photographs, manuscripts, and other formats dating from the medieval era to the present.
Theological Conversations (Presbyterian Church (USA))
In 2017, Theological Conversations will celebrate Reformation 500 with conversations about the PC(USA)’s heritage of Reformed theology. Each author in the 12-part series will explore what the Reformed tradition in the Presbyterian Church has to offer the church and the world in the next 500 years.
Theological Questions (OER)
"[A]n Open Educational Resource (free textbook) that originates from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and was created with funding form the Atla OER Grant Program. This open textbook was used at St. Mary's in the first of two required core theology courses. It is designed to give a broad historical overview of theological questions from the perspective of the Catholic tradition. It seeks to represent fairly a variety of questions and answers within and beyond the Catholic tradition. This OER is a foundation for other teachers of introductory courses in theology who may wish to adapt it for their purposes."
Theology on the Web
Includes material in the following areas: Biblical Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Early Church History, Medieval Church History, Missiology, Reformation Church History, Theological Studies
Treasures of Church Libraries | FIDES Digital Library (Polish)
Manuscripts, incunabula, old books, maps, atlases and graphic prints from the Federacja Bibliotek Kościelnych (Federation of the Church Libraries)
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The interface is available in Polish, German, Czech, English and French.
Umbra Search African American History | Keyword=Religion
"Umbra Search African American History makes African American history more broadly accessible through a freely available widget and search tool, umbrasearch.org; digitization of African American materials across University of Minnesota collections; and support of students, educators, artists, and the public through residencies, workshops, and events locally and around the country." https://www.umbrasearch.org/pages/about
Wesleyan-Holiness Digital Library (WHDL)
"The Wesleyan-Holiness Digital Library is a free, multidisciplinary, open access, digital resource of books, literature, multimedia material, and archives collected into a single institutional repository initiated by the global Church of the Nazarene in response to the global need for access to resources for education, lifelong learning, and specifically ministerial preparation."
World Digital Library: Religion
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from all countries and cultures. Item types include books, journals, manuscripts, maps, motion pictures, newspapers, prints and photographs, and sound recordings.
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WDL is a project of the U.S. Library of Congress, carried out with the support of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and in cooperation with libraries, archives, museums, educational institutions, and international organizations from around the world.
Yale Journal of Music & Religion
The Yale Journal of Music & Religion (YJMR) is published twice yearly by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, an interdisciplinary graduate center that educates leaders who foster, explore, and study engagement with the sacred through music, worship, and the arts in Christian communities, diverse religious traditions, and public life.
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The Yale Journal of Music & Religion (YJMR) is an interdisciplinary forum for the study of sacred music in all of its ritual, artistic, and cultural contexts. This peer-reviewed, open access, semiannual journal publishes substantial scholarship on religious music of all traditions across a range of methodologies, situating it within the worlds of beliefs and practices. YJMR pursues best practices in open access academic publishing.