Subject Guide: Biblical Studies : Searching scripture references

When doing research in biblical studies, you often will find it helpful to search for resources on specific scripture citations. Entering such search terms into the library discovery service search box often will provide many irrelevant results, since so many biblical book names are also common words in other contexts.

The best way to search for articles on scriptural passages is in the ATLA Religion Database with ATLAserials. To find that database, click on the Library Resources tab of the library web page and then select A-Z database list from the drop-down menu. You can also access it directly here.

Here are the steps involved in searching the ATLA database by scripture citation:

• Once you've connected to the database, click Scriptures on the blue menu bar near the top of the screen.
• This will open a list of all books in the Bible
• You will be given the option of clicking Expand to narrow the search by chapter, and clicking Expand again to narrow the search to individual verses.
• Selecting an individual chapter or verse will not limit your search only to that specific passage. It will include results for any larger passage of which that chapter or verse is a part.