Study Room

Resources for study

 General reference resources

• OCLC WorldCat: The library catalog of library catalogs. Find any book and where it is.

• AddAll: The original price comparison site for books, new and used.

• For Portland (Oregon) area residents (with a valid library card):

  • Chemeketa Cooperative Regional Library Services (CCRLS) online research resources - For Marion, Polk, and Yamhill counties and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde

  • Columbia City Community Library - Apply for a digital library card from St. Helens Public Library to access some of SHPL's digital resources

  • Libraries in Clackamas County (LINCC) online research resources - For Clackamas County, except for Johnson City

  • Clatskanie Library District online databases - For the residents of the Clatskanie, Oregon area

  • Fort Vancouver Regional Library online research resources - For Clark, Klickitat, and Skamania counties, Yale (in Cowlitz County), and the city of Woodland (Washington)

  • Multnomah County Library online research resources - For Multnomah County (MCL has a subscription to JSTOR!)

  • Rainier City Library - ask a reference librarian 

  • Scappoose Public Library District online research resources - For the City of Scappoose, Oregon

  • St. Helens Public Library online research resources - For the City of Saint Helens, Oregon

  • Vernonia Public Library: City of Vernonia residents can use the "Libraries of Oregon" database at the library (no remote access?)

  • Washington County Cooperative Library Services digital collections - For Washington County

  • Answerland - Ask an Oregon librarian any reference question

The Bible and related references

• YouVersion 

• Bible Gateway

• The Tanakh at Sefaria

• Blue Letter Bible - includes interlinear, concordance, and lexicons

• Digital Bible Society Study Bible - World English Bible, Versión Biblia Libre (Spanish), and commentaries

• The Complete Tanakh with Rashi - Classic commentaries by Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (better known as RaSh"i, 1040-1145, France). 

• ESV Global Study Bible 

• New English Translation with extensive footnotes and commentaries by Thomas Constable 

• EasyEnglish Bible

• Liberation and Inclusion Translation - a partially done project still in progress

• The Fillmore Study Bible - metaphysical commentaries on the scriptures

• LIT Bible Companion (ChatGPT) - A specifically trained AI chatbot for questions about the Bible and theology

• Y'all Version Bible - Clarifies whether "you" in any given Bible verse means singular or plural

• A big list of links to all Bible books, apocryphas, and pseudoepigraphs

• Targum - early Aramaic translations/paraphrases of the Tanakh (with modern English translations from the Aramaic text)

Liturgical resources

• The Book of Common Prayer (The Episcopal Church)

• Liturgy,io 

Resources for research

• Semantic Scholar - a search engine

• Open-Access Digital Theological Library

• Globethics

• Post-Reformation Digital Library - mainly Protestant theological writings from the late 15th to 18th centuries.

• Andrews University Digital Commons

• Asbury Theological Seminary Digital Commons

• Calvin University Digital Commons

• Concordia Seminary (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) Digital Commons

• George Fox University (and Portland Seminary) Digital Commons

• Liberty University Digital Commons

• Loyola Marymount University Digital Commons

• The Database of Religious History by the University of British Columbia

• Bible commentaries and other resources on Blue Letter Bible

• Bible Study Online - seeks to explain the Bible using the Bible alone

• St. Andrews Encyclopedia of Theology

• Theopedia - A free online encyclopedia written from Calvinistic viewpoints

• Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology

• Systematic Theology Study Guide - based on Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, this series offers a concise overview of a Reformed (Calvinist) doctrinal theology that is accepted by a large segment of Protestant Christians (mainly Presbyterian and Reformed, as well as some Baptists and Congregationalists).

• McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia - An encyclopedia of biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical literature containing nearly 50,000 articles, 

• The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon (BDB)

• Midrash - a collection of medieval and modern rabbinical commentaries on the Torah

• Second Temple period Jewish literature - written around the time of Jesus, this collection includes some of the texts that made it into the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles (known as Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal texts). The writings of Philo and Flavius Josephus are also included here.

• Mishnah - Compiled around 200 CE, the Mishnah represents the Jewish thoughts and teachings during and after the Second Temple period. Reading the Mishnah, as such, provides a great insight into the cultural and religious context behind the New Testament.

• Christian Classics Ethereal Library - one of the oldest digital libraries on the Web.

• Internet Sacred Texts Archive - A massive collection of religious texts from the world.

• Didache - Didache was the first practical manual of Christian faith written in the first century. It was commonly accepted by the believers, and it almost made it into the New Testament canon.