BIBL - RLGN 3000: Ancient-Reformation-Modern

Find your passage in Ancient Christian commentary (Ref. BS491.2 .A52)

Look for the names of Ancient Christian writers, which are quoted in Ancient Christian commentary for that passage

• The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture [Volumes on the individual books (or sub-sections of books) of the Bible are in the Reference Collection]

Find the full-text in print or online for some of those ancient Christian writers, and read

• searches like au:Chrysostom and su:Bible John
• searches like su:Bible Galatians early church interpretation
• searches like su:Bible Ezekiel church fathers
• Ante-Nicene Fathers [Reference Collection]
• Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers [Reference Collection]
• Ancient Christian texts [Reference Collection]
• Other sources, such as the series titled “Ancient Christian Writers” may be found in the general stacks in Nicholson Library.

Write down "(1) What did writers interpret the text to mean, i. e. what did they write about it?"  Look for differences.

For the "(2)  ... brief biographical sketch{es] (a 4-5 sentence paragraph)" in information from from dictionaries of Christianity

• In reference, try BR66 through BR97 for print books.
• Online try Oxford Reference Library or Cambridge Core

For the "(3) Explain or otherwise describe the methods used by the writers to interpret the text."  mostly express your own analysis.  Perhaps help from, introductions to the book

Search help for BiBLindex

Similarly to the Ancient Christian writers series, there is a collection of quotations ordered by books of the Bible in the following series.  However, the series is incomplete, and you may not find you book of the Bible, or passage. 

Reformation commentary on Scripture. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic.  Ref. BS491.2 .R43

The works of these reformation authors are widely available.  Look for an index volume which contain scripture indexes.  The first three of these writers are available at Nicholson library.

• Jean (John) Calvin
  • Located in the circulating stacks, by books of the Bible, not as a set, for example Calvin's commentary on Genesis is at BS1235 .C293 v.1-2 
  • Search the library catalog, like this, substituting your book of the Bible:
    • Calvin commentaries Bible Genesis
  • The Old Testament commentaries are only in a 19th century translation by William Pringle.
  • The New Testament commentaries were translated also more recently, in the 1950s and 1960s edited by Calvin commentaries Bible Torrance, so to find these newer translations add Calvin commentaries Bible Torrance to your search; and you may have to "Place Hold" to get these shipped to Nicholson from Indiana Partner Libraries:
    • Calvin commentaries Bible Hebrews Torrance
• Martin Luther   -- Stacks BR330 .E5 1955
• John Wesley  -- Stacks BX8217 .W54 1979
      v.14 is has a scripture index to the other volumes
• Matthew Henry (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001932487 or on many Bible study websites)
• Jonathan Edwards (American, 1703-1758) -- Stacks BX7117.E3 
      each volume includes a scripture index in the back, you'll need to look in the index in each volume of his sermons, which are arranged by year.
• Cotton Mather (American, 1663-1728)  v.1 Genesis, v.3 Joshua, v.4 Ezra-Psalms, v.5 Proverbs-Jeremiah, v.9 Romans-Philemon  are available Interlibrary Loan from Indiana Partner Libraries.
  Mather, Cotton. Biblia Americana : America's First Bible Commentary. Edited by Reiner Smolinski, Mohr Siebeck, 2010-
• Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274)  He wrote commentaries on most N.T. books, and Psalms, Job, & Lamentations.  You can find English translations on line at http://dhspriory.org/thomas/; or by searching the catalog au:(Thomas Aquinas Saint) and kw:(Bible [Psalms, Galatians, etc.])
• Cornelius a Lapide (active 1592-1616)
  Catholic counter reformation commentator Great Commentary (online, includes most of the New Testament)

And you can find these people in Dictionaries of Christianity (see above in the biographies section of this guide.)

The biographies of the authors is a difficult part of this assignment.  Maybe try

University/Seminary website for the vita/resume of the author, or a biography blurb (probably written by the university marketing department though)

Review of Biblical Literature
Here you might find reviews modern commentaries, and some more authoritative info on the authors. 

Don't trust dust jackets, publisher websites, or Amazon for these biographies.

Here are some commentary series in the Reference Collection

Please watch this more advanced video about the ATLA Religion Database,
teaching you how to search its unique index of Scripture passages.

• Turabian Quick Guide
• Anderson University School of Theology Guide to Turabian

It is usually easiest to read eBooks online, a chapter at a time.  If you want to download an entire eBook, it is doable but can be a bit complicated.  Here are instructions. https://libguides.anderson.edu/ebooks/download

Looking for a specific Journal, Magazine, or Newspaper?
Search here to see if we carry it at AU Nicholson Library (in print or electronically).

Theological Commons (at Princeton Theological Seminary), The

Has a better search interface that most free digital sites, It offers more than 75,000 out-of-copyright titles in religion and theology.  Most of the books were published before 1923.

Early English Books Online (EEBO) subset
May help to find Early Modern commentaries: full-text searchable collection of 25,300 eBooks from the roughly 125,000 books and pamphlets to be found in the Pollard and Redgrave and Wing short-title catalogues of early printed books, published in English or in England before 1700. 

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* Questions? Just ask a Librarian: http://library.anderson.edu/help/ask

* Need something from another Library, or sent to a remote location?Interlibrary Loan: http://illiad.anderson.edu/