Guides: REL 301 Christianity and Culture: Religion Database Resources

General Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides full text coverage to nearly 9,100 journals, including over 7,900 peer-reviewed titles in the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education and more. Full-text coverage dates back to 1985 and is updated daily.

These general databases are good places to start your search for articles.

JSTOR
Access the journal archives Arts & Sciences I, II, III, IV, VI, & VII and over 40,000 ebooks on the JSTOR platform; book chapters and journal articles are cross-searchable. JSTOR is an extensive archive of interdisciplinary journals and books, covering subject disciplines in Arts, Business & Economics, History, Humanities, Law, Science & Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Religion.

Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text coverage of approximately 15,000 national and regional newspapers, broadcast transcripts, magazines, wire services, federal and state court opinions, federal and state statutes, federal regulations and SEC filings. Access to company profiles, market research and trade journals plus Shepard's Citations® service for all federal and states court cases back to 1789. This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff. For an overview of how to use Nexis Uni, visit this page.

Atla Religion Database This link opens in a new window
Provides access to 632,100 article citations from more than 1,650 journals (518 currently indexed), more than 260,200 essay citations from over 16,700 multi-author works, more than 575,400 book review citations, essays, ministry reports and a growing number of multimedia citations. Includes major theology and religious journals reflecting all major faiths, denominations and language groups. Beginning in 1949 although indexing for some journal titles extends back into the nineteenth century.

These resources can only be accessed by Pepperdine University students, faculty and staff. Login to WaveNet.

Biblical Archaeology Society Online Archive This link opens in a new window
Dating back to 1985, the Biblical Archaeology Society Online Archive contains the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR). BAR is an archaeology magazine covering both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament since its beginning in 1975.
New Testament Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 50,000 article abstracts, 1,600 review abstracts, 18,000 book abstracts, and 61 software abstracts dealing with the New Testament and its historical milieu. Article coverage dates back to 1985.
Each year an additional 2,000 articles from more than 500 periodicals in numerous languages are selected for inclusion. In addition, approximately 900 current books are also summarized annually.
Old Testament Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Includes indexing and abstracts for journal articles, monographs and multi-author works related to Old Testament studies, covering antiquities, archaeology, biblical theology, philology and more. Includes content from 500+ journals with coverage back to 1978.

American Religious Identification Survey 2013
The third in a series of surveys that ask Americans how they self-identify in terms of religion. Also probes "socio-demographic, political, social, and life-cycle issues as well as attitudes". Links to the 1990 and 2001 surveys included.
Association of Religion Data Archives
"Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. Currently housed in the Social Science Research Institute, the College of Liberal Arts, and the Department of Sociology at the Pennsylvania State University, the ARDA is funded by the Lilly Endowment, the John Templeton Foundation and the Pennsylvania State University."
Religious Landscape Study
From the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, this is based on survey data of 35,000 American adults. Easy access is provided to information on Affilations, Maps, Portraits, and Comparisons.
National Congregations Survey
From Duke University, "The National Congregations Study (NCS) is an ongoing national survey effort to gather information about the basic characteristics of America's congregations."
North American Jewish Data Bank
"The North American Jewish Data Bank is the central repository of social scientific studies of North American Jewry."

Virtual Religion Index
This index analyzes and highlights important content of religion-related websites.
Worldwide Faith News
Worldwide Faith News is a database of full text official news releases and other documents, including policy statements, from the news offices of national and world faith groups. This collection indexes more than 45,000 documents.
Why Study Religion?
Useful especially for "Where do I start" Tab, which links to a list of basic texts, by general categories and specific religions.
Hartford Institute Sociology of Religion Gateway
This website includes information about studies in the Sociology of Religion.
Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology
This website contains articles written mainly by students of Boston University Modern Western Theology seminars.
Resource Pages for Biblical Studies
These pages are intended as a resource for serious, scholarly studies of the early Christian writings and their social world.
Society of Biblical Literature Educational Resources
This website lists many educational resources of particular interest to biblical scholars.