Guides: Religion: Finding Articles

General Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides full text coverage to peer-reviewed titles in the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education and more.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Archive of interdisciplinary journals and books, covering the Arts, Business & Economics, History, Humanities, Law, Science & Mathematics, Social Sciences, and Religion.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Features news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis®—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790. For help on how to use Nexis Uni, visit the research guide.
This database is only available to current Pepperdine students, faculty, and staff.

Religion Databases

Atla Religion Database This link opens in a new window
Includes theology and religious journals reflecting all major faiths, denominations and language groups, plus book reviews, essays, ministry reports and multimedia citations. Collection dates to 1949.
Biblical Archaeology Society Online Archive This link opens in a new window
Contains the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) dating back to 1985.
New Testament Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Article, book and biblical software abstracts pertaining to the New Testament, dating 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
Abstracts for journal articles and books related to Old Testament studies, covering antiquities, archaeology, biblical theology, philology and more, coverage back to 1978.

Using ATLA

The ATLA Religion Database covers a wide range of religious traditions, controversies, and issues. You will find not only peer-reviewed articles from major religion journals, but also more popular content that provides a window on current news and opinions. Western religions are covered more closely than other traditions, but you will find important coverage of most religions. "Religion" in ATLA encompasses concerns beyond theology and doctrine to include issues like environmentalism, human rights, war and peace, religious freedom, ethics, and culture.

Coverage:

Traditions: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, African Religions, American Indian Religions, Paganism, Folk Religions

Subjects: Bible, archaeology, and antiquities; human culture and society; church history, missions, and ecumenism; pastoral ministry; world religions and religious studies; and theology, philosophy, and ethics

Document Types: Scholarly articles, magazine articles, essays, books, book reviews

Dates: Publication dates run from the early 1800s to the present

Searching Tips:

Below are a few examples of how to construct search phrases. Search phrases are in bold, with explanations bulleted.

hinduism and renunciation

searches for the keywords "hinduism" and "renunciation"

jewish civilization

searches for the phrase "jewish civilization"

hinduism or india

searches for either "hinduism" or "india"

christianity n5 gnosticism

searches for "christianity" within 5 words of "gnosticism", in any order

buddha w8 japan

searches "buddha" within 8 words of "japan", in the order that they appear

hindu*

searches for "hindu", "hinduism", "hindustan", "hindus"

Finding Articles Based on Scripture Citations:

The ATLA Religion Database makes it easy to find articles that cite specific books, chapters, and verses of the Bible. Click on the "Scriptures" link in the upper left side of the database page. If you would like to find all articles related to a particular book of the Bible, click on the name of the book. If you would like all articles related to a particular chapter of a particular book, click on "expand" and then select the chapter. You can click expand one more time to search for articles related to a particular verse.