Religious Studies: Specific Religions

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is very proud to present the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, a free online digitized virtual library of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hundreds of manuscripts made up of thousands of fragments – discovered from 1947 and until the early 1960’s in the Judean Desert along the western shore of the Dead Sea – are now available to the public online.

Free online resources for the study of Christianity.

connecting a number of related fields of study including Judaism, ancient history and philosophy, The Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (BEEC) focuses on the history of early Christianity, covering texts, authors, and ideas.

The collection of documents brought together in this project begins to tell the story of the growth of Protestant religion among African Americans during the nineteenth century, and of the birth of what came to be known as the "Black Church" in the United States. From Documenting the American South

Index to an archive of music for free use with hymns, including sheet music, MIDI files, and background information.

A collection of 19th Century American Sunday School books from Michigan State University

Explore detailed information and family trees for over 400 U.S. religious denominations.

The US Congregational Life has been conducted in two waves in an effort to take a "snapshot" of regular congregational life. The survey was conducted by worshipers in a random sampling of congregations in the US. Results of the survey are made available, along with publications utilizing the data, in the Of General Interest section of the Publications and Research link on the main page, generally arranged by topic. Findings of this survey are also found in Woolever's Field Guide to US Congregations.

Published by the Cooperative Congregations Studies Partnership, Faith Communities Today conducts a series of ongoing studies related to congregational life. Their data looks at trends across many different sects of Christianity and also interfaith worship. The most recent study was conducted in 2010.

The National Congregations Study surveys a representative sample of America's churches, synagogues, mosques and other local places of worship. The NCS is based on in-depth interviews with congregational leaders in 1998, 2006-07, 2012, and 2018-19. It gathers information about worship, programs, staffing, community activities, demographics, and many other characteristics of American congregations.

Provides a county-by-county measure of religious bodies in the US. The study is currently sponsored by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. The survey includes maps, reports, and data sets of survey results. 2010 RCMS was released May 1, 2012. An overview of the study can be found here. Full regional reports can be searched through the ARDA.

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.).

Free service for reading and researching Scripture online -- all in the language or translation of your choice. Provides advanced tools that can be used to search the Bible by keywords or verse, as well as other tools to enhance the study of the Bible.

A collection of searchable Bibles with: various English versions; Greek; Hebrew; ancient translations; dozens of other language versions.

The Gottingen copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the Model Book and the Helmasperger Notarial Instrument are accompanied by explanatory texts about Gutenberg and his life, the early period of letterpress printing and its impact.

Various editions of the bible in hypertext

This online Bible includes research tools and maps.

A search engine that aggregates and displays information from major papyri collections worldwide.

Study Bible developed and located around the world. Hosted by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

This website is intended for those looking for "looking for detailed information on the history of the canon, texts, and versions of Scripture.”

This site from the American Bible Society features articles about biblical figures and study guides for various books of the Bible.

Full texts of commentaries written by John Calvin prepared for the OnLine Bible project and the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Extensive collection of classic theological works from all periods of church history.

Electronic text of the classic "Commentary of the Whole Bible" by Matthew Henry.

A comprehensive directory to texts, translations, and biblical studies materials that are freely available online.

Large, non-scholarly site whose “mission is to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness...not affiliated with any spiritual organization or movement.”

Academic articles, news on new religious movements, scholarly conferences and other information.

Historical sources on the history of human societies in the continent of Africa from Fordham University.

The belief system of the Church and School is based not on one tradition but on a composite system of spiritual and magical beliefs.

The instittute's mission is To promote religious tolerance, interfaith dialogue, and education about religions of the world as a pathway to world peace.

Analyzes & highlights important content of religion-related websites to speed research. Hyperlinks are provided not only to homepages and directories, but to major websites and documents.

From the Internet Sacred Texts website.

Entry from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

From Harvard's Pluralism Project

A progressive religion well ahead of its time when it was founded over 500 years ago, The Sikh religion today has a following of over 20 million people worldwide and is ranked as the worlds 5th largest religion.

Created by Vinay Lal, Associate Professor of History at UCLA.

The largest Sikhism resource on the Internet. Articles, excerpts from sacred writings, prayers, audio, and video.

From Harvard's Pluralism Project

From the Internet Sacred Text Archive

From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

A basic site with texts and other information

From the Internet Sacred Texts Archive

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc., a non-sectarian group for preserving Buddhist traditions.

Collection of free Buddhist materials designed to support the study and practice of the Buddha´s Teachings in all Buddhist traditions. Includes audio, video, sacred texts, and more.

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Internet guide to Buddhism and Buddhist studies. Contains sacred texts, bibliographies, articles, poetry, and other documents. Also contains links to other Buddhist sites.

The THESAURUS LITERATURAE BUDDHICAE (TLB) is a multilingual presentation of Buddhist literature sentence by sentence in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, English, etc from the University of Oslo.

Information on all aspects of Hinduism, mainly written for the practicing Hindu. Links to Hindu scriptures and writings, Hindu festivals, organizations, and news.

Hinduism Basics

Links include documents as well as information pages on various aspects of the Hindu religion.

Jain Principles, Traditon and Practices

Federation of Jainism Associations in America.

From Harvard's Pluralism Project

Completed in 1952, this was the first comprehensive English translation of the Talmud Bavli. This online version from the Internet Archive is easy to turn through, enlarge, and read.

Compiled from Judaism's 613 commandments found in the Torah.

Various primary Jewish texts, including Tanakh, Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash, and Siddur, generally in older versions. From the Internet Sacred Text Archive.

This site is devoted to fostering mutual respect and understanding between Christians and Jews around the world. Here you will find articles, reviews, reports, official statements, and study resources on Jewish-Christian relations, as well as links to many related organizations.

This website contains the complete contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906. The Jewish Encyclopedia, which recently became part of the public domain, contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations.

Remember.org offers contributors (survivors, liberators, historians, family, students and teachers) a place to connect and share the best research resources and stories through art, photography, painting, audio/video, and remembrance.

From Fordham University

Mitzvahs and traditions from chabad.org

Islam.com is intended serve the spiritual, commercial, informational, communication, cultural, educational, economic, political and social needs of the worldwide Islamic community in the 21st century.

From Fordham University

Includes texts, background, language resources and special topics such as Sufism.

This site is dedicated to the study of the philosophical output of the Muslim world. Islamic philosophy is also sometimes referred to as Arabic philosophy or Muslim philosophy. This site contains hundreds of full-length books and articles on Islamic philosophy, ranging from the classical texts in the canon of Islamic philosophy to modern works of Muslim philosophy.

QuranExplorer.com was started in October, 2005, by a group of Muslims living in Orlando, Florida, USA with the goal of spreading the message of the Holy Quran to all mankind and serve as a source of guidance and light for all human beings throughout the face of this earth, regardless of race, color, age, nationality, and religion (Aameen).

This website is for people of various faiths who seek to understand Islam and Muslims. It contains a lot of brief, yet informative articles about different aspects of Islam.

Online search tool that allows you to browse, search, and listen to the Holy Quran. Includes translations of the Quran in various languages.