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Religion & Philosophy Research Guide: NBST 610 - Hermeneutics

This research guide features resources and strategies for finding information and conducting research related to Religion and Philosophy.

Introduction

This course guide for NBST 610-Hermeneutics, is intended to direct you to electronic resources that will aid you in your assigned exegetical paper and to instruct you in how to find commentaries and scholarly journal articles for your paper.

Finding Commentaries

  • Access the library’s online catalog at www.liberty.edu  for print and electronic books.
  • From the library’s web page under where you find “Find Resources” click on “Books.” 
  • Under the search box you will see a default search for “Print,” "E-book” and "Audiobook." In order to search for only e-books unclick the box next to "Print" and "Audiobook."
  • For commentaries on Bible books search “Bible” and the name of the Bible book followed by the word "Commentaries, e.g., “Bible. – Mark -- Commentaries.” For I John use, "Bible -- Epistles of John -- Commentaries.
  • The better commentaries will deal with interpretative problems within the text. Avoid devotional commentaries.
  • Below you will find a few recommended commentaries for each of your assigned passages. You will probably need to find additional commentaries. 

Commentaries

Finding Articles

 
  • The Theological Journal Library is an excellent database to use for full text articles on specific theological topics and biblical passages. It contains the full text of 36 conservative evangelical journals.
    • To access this database click on the red "Database" tab above and then scroll down to you see the Theological Journal Library database.
    • Search the database by topic by choosing “Search Journals” located on the right-hand side of the page. Put your search terms in quotes followed by a tilde (~) and a number, e.g. “Holy Spirit eschatology”~10. The database will search for all these terms and retrieve articles that have these terms within 10 words of each other.
    • “Search by Verse” is also located on the right-hand side. Once you click on “Search by Verse” key in the verse or passage that interests you, e.g. 2 Thes 2:7.
    • After you enter a search a list of journal article titles should be retrieved; click on the title to see the full text.

       

  • Another database you will want to use is the Atla Religion Database with Atla Serials.
    • To access this database click on the red "Databases" tab above and scroll down to the first database.
    • This database can also be searched by biblical passages specifically in the “Scripture Citation” field. This also will result in more relevant search results. To access this feature click on “Scripture” at the top of the database’s home page.