English 116B: Literature of the New Testament

• Research Links

  These links are relevant to the materials and issues that have been introduced in class. This is a growing collection, so feel free to suggest other links, and be sure to check back here regularly to see what's new.  (Thanks to Patricia Marby Harrison, who prepared the original list of links.)   

   

Table of Contents:

Early Texts: [Top of Page]

• Refrigerium Early Christian Website - Internet Resources on Early Christianity - A goldmine of sources!! Information on the noncanonical gospels, the historical Jesus, the development of Orthodox Christianity, and more!
• Sites Related to The Book of Q (Refrigerium)
• The Gospel of Thomas, Gnosticism, and Other Non-Orthodox Christianity (Refrigerium) - Look here for both the Greek and Coptic versions of the Gospel of Thomas. This site also includes the Nag Hammedi Codexes, annotated and linked to this page. You'll find the Codexes under the heading "Gnosticism," a bit down the page.
•  The early church fathers on the Refrigerium page.
• The Q hypothesis:  Mahlon H. Smith compares the Q hypothesis with other proposed solutions to the synoptic problem (especially Griesbach-Farmer & Farrer-Goulder) and concludes that it belongs in a scholars' canon of early Christian sources.
• The Noncanonical Webpage (The Wesley Center): Documents to Aid Students and Scholars alike in Biblical Interpretation
• The Gospel of Thomas Homepage (Stevan Davies)
• The Synoptic Problem Page (Stephen Carlson) "The Synoptic Problem concerns the literary relationship between the the first three gospels of the New Testament. This page is meant to be a clearing-house for materials related to its resolution."
• The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark (Shawn Eyer) "How Morton Smith's Discovery of a Lost Letter by Clement of Alexandria Scandalized Biblical Scholarship."

The Historical Jesus Controversy:[Top of Page]

• The Search for a No-Frills Jesus (article by Charlotte Allen in Atlantic Monthly).
• "Who do men say that I Am?"  (by Cullen Murphy, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1986; an excellent introductory article on the issue of the search for the historical Jesus, surveying a range of New Testament scholars.)
• In Search of Jesus: Some scholars seek answers in history and redefine the meaning of his life and deeds. (Jeffery L. Sheler, with Mike Tharp and Jill Jordan Seider, US News and World Report)
• The Gospels as Historical Sources for Jesus, the Founder of Christianity (Prof. R.T. France, Leadership U.) - scholarly article analyzing the claims to historicity based on the gospels.
• Historical Sources on Jesus (Nicholas Beale) - excerpts from early historians who mention Jesus or the Christian movement. Provides non-biblical evidence of what was happening and how Christians were regarded.
• The Jesus Seminar.  "These pages are an official gateway to the research of the Jesus Seminar of the Westar Institute & a bridge to Jesus scholarship elsewhere."  The controversial colloquium trying to determine the authentic historical sayings of Jesus.
• The Gospel According to the Jesus Seminar (UCSB Faculty/Staff Christian Forum) - written by Birger A. Pearson, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at UCSB.

Biblical History and Reference Materials: [Top of Page]

• Ecole: Early Church On-Line Encyclopedia (Anthony Beavers, et al., U. Evansville) - "sophisticated, in-progress hypertext encylcopedia of early church history."
• Ecole Chronology Project (Ecole: Early Church On-Line Encyclopedia; Anthony Beavers, U. Evansville) - "innovative, forms-based timeline of early church history organized both temporally and geographically: choose a temporal era to generate a page of available geographical coverage for that era, then choose a geographical locale to generate a list of dated events specific to that locale. The forms-approach also allows the user to jump temporally forwards or backwards in set increments from any point."
• UCSB Faculty/Staff Christian Forum (Art Battson, UCSB) - has a thorough library as well as an extensive archive of issues related to Christianity and the University.

Biblical Research Tools: [Top of Page]

• "And Adam Knew Eve": A Dictionary of Sex in the Bible (Ronald L. Ecker) - a thorough investigation of the subject of sex as it appears in the New Testament and Hebrew Scriptures. Solid information; fairly balanced in its conclusions. Check out the preface for a fuller explanation of the purpose of this project.
• Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (Matthew Henry, Wheaton College) - searchable!
• Classical and Biblical Research Tools (Jack Lynch, U. Penn) - contains links to many major web resources for biblical studies.
• WWW Bible Gateway (Calvin College, Michigan) - "multilingual, searchable access to multiple versions of the Bible."
• Voice of the Shuttle: Religious Studies Page (Alan Liu, UCSB) - a rich meta-site for religious studies in general.

Bible Humor: [Top of Page]

• Jesus' Homepage -- definitely over the top!  Jesus doesn't seem to be maintaining his webpage and isn't answering his e-mail.
• A Politically Correct Nativity Scene
• A Modern Noah's Ark
• God in Cyberspace

General Reference Resources: [Top of Page]

• Citing Periodicals, Journals, and Other Text in MLA Format - an online version of the standard MLA Handbook citation guidelines for print materials.
• InfoSurf Tools (Davidson Library, UCSB) - the UCSB library's collection of research and reference tools, including links to Pegasus and Melvyl.
• Voice of the Shuttle Reference Page (A. Liu, English, UCSB) - contains links to useful reference material such as various online dictionaries (such as the Oxford English Dictionary), encyclopedias, and style manuals.

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General comments, suggestions to oconnell@humanitas.ucsb.edu.