The British Columbia Digital Library

Digital Library Collections By Subject: Religions

Scope: This section contains historical religious texts from Christian and other religions. For texts pertaining to missionary activities within a specific geographic region, refer to the closest country or continent, or to texts by language and/or location, for example, American Texts or Canadian Texts.

See also Civilization, Ancient; and Literature, General Works.

General Resources (Multiple religions)

• English Religious Resources (Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library). As of February 2001, includes the King James and Standard versions of the Bible (with a side-by-side comparison view), The Book of Morman, The Koran, a polyglot Bible, and Irving Hexham's searchable/browsable Concise Dictionary of Religion.
• The Internet Sacred Text Archive. Compiled by J.B. Hare. "This site is a freely available non-profit archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, in some cases, in the original language." Date added: 2002-01-02.

Buddhism

• BuddhaNet: Buddhist Information Network. Sydney, Australia: Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc. Includes a library of free eBooks in Adobe PDF files. Date accessed: 2002-02-03. Date added: 2002-02-03.
• Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA). The goal of this association is to "Develop Buddhist information technology, improve the exchange and accessability of Buddhist scriptures, use the special capacities of the electronic medium to store and deliver the scriptures of the Chinese Tripitaka to everybody, who would like to access it." Date accessed: 2002-10-20. Date added: 2002-10-20.
• Digital Buddhist Library and Museum. National Taiwan University and Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies. This site features a full-text database of resources for the study and practice of Buddhism. Date accessed: 2002-10-20. Date added: 2002-10-20.
• Electronic Buddhist Text Initiative (EBTI). Hosted by IRIZ (Japan). Summary: "...a loose association of institutions and individuals involved in the input and processing of Buddhist texts in the electronic medium. It was founded in 1993 in Berkeley, California...." Date accessed: 2002-10-20. Date added: 2002-10-20.
• International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism (IRIZ). Kyoto, Japan: Hanazono University. Bilingual interface: English and Japanese. This site provides access to downloadable, compressed files of various texts relating to the practice of Zen Buddhism. Date accessed: 2002-10-20. Date added: 2002-10-20. Date updated: 2004-10-20.
• Research Institute of Tripitaka Korean. Established in 1993, this organization is digitizing the Tripitaka Koreana (Koryo Tripitaka = Taejang'kyong) or Korean Buddhist sutra housed in Haein Temple as National Treasure No. 32. Date accessed: 2002-10-20. Date added: 2002-10-20.

Christianity see also The Bible.

• Augustine of Hippo (Maintained by J.J. O'Donnell). Links to Latin and English translations of St. Augustine's writings, as well as supporting research materials.
• Biblioteca Electrónica Cristiana. Lima, Peru: VE Multimedios. Spanish language collection in HTML format of Christian texts chiefly relating to the Catholic faith. Date accessed: 2002-10-25. Date added: 2002-10-25.
• The Book of Mormon (Humanities Text Initiative, University of Michigan). Searchable/browsable edition in SGML format.
• Christian Classics Ethereal Library (Calvin College, Michigan). Originally established at the University of Pittsburgh in 1993, this digital library collection contains searchable/browsable electronic editions of Christian philosophical and ecclesiastical works. The editions are marked up in ThML (Theological Markup Language based on XML) and include links to digital facsimile pages (Portable Network Graphics format images) which can be navigated like a physical book. Some works are also available in languages other than English, including Chinese and Russian. Many titles can be downloaded to handheld devices running Palm OS or the Microsoft Reader.
• Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis (CEEC). Köln, Germany: Historisch Kulturwissenschaftliche Informationsverarbeitung, Universität zu Köln. Searchable/browsable digital facsimile collection of medieval codices preserved mainly in Cologne (Köln) cathedrals. Date accessed: 2004-08-27. Date added: 2004-08-27.
• The Ecole Initiative: Creating a Hypertext Encyclopedia of Early Church History on the World-Wide Web. Evansville, Indiana: University of Evansville, 1995-. Founding editor: Anthony F. Beavers; general editors: Karen Ræ Keck and Norman Hugh Redington. Date accessed: 2003-12-15. Date added: 2003-12-15.
• The Greek Orthodox Church in Canada. The section entitled Greek Orthodox Faith includes an online catechism and links to several other Internet/Web resources with multimedia and electronic publications.
• Internet Christian Library (ICLnet). Founded in 1992, contains one of the largest public collections of texts, as well as an Internet guide, relating to the history of Christianity from its beginnings to the present day. The site includes links to English translations of classical Graeco-Roman texts such as Thucydides' History Of The Peloponnesian War and Plato's Republic.
• Luther Digital. Wittenberg, Germany: The Luther House, Stiftung Luthergedenkstätten in Sachsen-Anhalt (Luther Memorial Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt). Bilingual interface (German and English) to a sampling of multimedia digitized content managed with IBM's DB2 Content Management system. Date accessed: 2004-03-06. Date added: 2004-03-06.
• Project Wittenberg. Works by and about Martin Luther (1483-1546) and his followers. In addition to direct links found on the project home page, the Project Wittenberg Lutheran Electronic Archive contains an organized set of links to these historic texts from the present back to the 16th century BPE (as of February 2001).
• Reformiert Online = Reformed Online. Emden, Germany:  Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek; Geneva, Switzerland: World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). Digital collection with user submissions that features a full-text database of modern and historical Reformed Protestant texts. Multilingual interface (German, English, French and Spanish). Date accessed: 2004-03-06. Date added: 2004-03-06.
• The Waterloo Lutheran Seminary Historic Text Archive (Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario). Public domain texts encoded in SGML relating to the history of Lutheranism in North America.
• Yale Divinity School Digital Library (Yale University). As of January 2001, contains two collections that can be searched simultaneously or independently: EIKON: Image Database for Biblical Studies and Ad Hoc: Images and Text for the History of Christianity. Additional links to other digital projects pertaining to Christianity can be found at the Yale Divinity School Library, Digital Projects and Research Websites.

Daoism (Taoism)

• Daoist Scriptures. Multilanguage (Chinese, English and German) online Daoist texts in HTML format.

Hinduism

• Hindu Resources Online. Kauai, Hawaii: Himalayan Academy. Site includes links to a large selection of online publications about Hinduism.

Islam

• Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project. Consult the Subject Index for a complete list of multimedia content, including digital books.

Judaism

• CJH Digital Collections. New York, NY: Center for Jewish History, 2007-. Multimedia digital facsimile collection of Jewish history, which includes books. Date accessed: 2007-04-01. Date added: 2007-04-01.
• Pirqé Rabbi Eliezer Electronic Text Editing Project (Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles, and University of Southern California). Digital facsimile and SGML/TEI-encoding of a medieval Hebrew narrative retelling part of the Old Testament of the Bible.

^ RETURN TO TOP ^ | <   BACK TO THE LOBBY   <

Compiled by David Mattison, Victoria Telecommunity Network, BC. Copyright © 2000-2006 by the BC Community Network Association. This site may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without the consent of the BCCNA.