Research Guides: Religious Studies: Second Temple Judaism & Christian Origins

Find materials in our library

In our Catalog Advanced Search, select Subject from the drop down menu and search on terms such as

Judaism -- History -- Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.-210 A.D.
Judaism -- History -- Talmudic period, 10-425
Church history -- Primitive and early church -- ca. 30-600
Church history -- Primitive and early church -- approximately 30-600
Jewish Christians -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600
Messianic Judaism

Or search for particular persons / figures, authors or titles, or by language. You can also do a simple keyword search with terms such as "second temple"

Find specialized literature

To find specialized literature, search the following databases

ATLA with ATLASerials (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
A collection of major religion and theology journals selected by some of the major religion scholars in the United States.
New Testament Abstracts (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
The database is an indispensable research and bibliographic aid for scholars, librarians, clergy and students of the New Testament and its historical milieu, containing article, review, book and software abstracts.

Index Religiosus
Internationally renowned bibliography of academic publications in the fields of theology, religious sciences, and Church history. It is a gateway to books and articles written in major European languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, etc.)
Bibliographic Information Base in Patristics (BIBP)
Bibliographic Information Base in Patristics is a documentary system in patristics. Even if patristic literature remains its major preoccupation, the BIBP works on all disciplines studying patristic Christianity. Until now, the priority is given to the current information from the scientific journals
L'Année Philologique: Bibliography of the Classical World
Specialized bibliographic database of scholarly works relating to all aspects of Ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, including: Greek and Latin literature and linguistics (which includes early Christian texts and patristics), Greek and Roman history, art, archaeology, philosophy, religion, mythology, music, science, and scholarly sub-specialties such as numismatics, papyrology, and epigraphy

For a broader search across article and book length literature, try Library Articles Search

Library Articles Search

Reference works & portals

Second Temple and Talmudic Era (The Jewish History Resource Center)
Online resources The Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Enoch Seminar Online
Online resources related to the study of Second Temple Judaism and Christian, Rabbinic and Islamic origins, from the Enoch Seminar
4 Enoch: The Online Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism, and Christian and Islamic Origins
Ancient Jew Review
Non-profit web journal devoted to the study of ancient Judaism. In this respect, AJR incorporates scholarship from a wide range of fields, including Hellenistic, Roman, Sasanian, and Persian history, Biblical Studies, ancient Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism, and the Second Temple period

Encyclopedia of Ancient History This link opens in a new window
Online version of the comprehensive collection of entries covering the entire ancient Mediterranean world, including the Near East and Egypt.

Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (online)

Encyclopaedia of Judaism This link opens in a new window
Online version of The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, Second Edition (2005).

Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity Online This link opens in a new window

Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies
Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Apocrypha
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Website
Blog, email list, bibliography, etc maintained by Dr James R. Davila

See also the following from Oxford Bibliographies, Jewish Studies (available via ILL)

"Second Temple Judaism" Annette Yoshiko Reed

Text collections / corpora

Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine
Seeks to collect and make accessible over the Web all of the previously published inscriptions (and their English translations) of Israel/Palestine from the Persian period through the Islamic conquest (ca. 500 BCE - 640 CE). There are about 15,000 of these inscriptions, written primarily in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin, by Jews, Christians, Greeks, and Romans
Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library : Biblical Texts (Brill)
The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library presents a complete Hebrew transcription and English translation of the Biblical texts, together with high-resolution images.
Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library : Non-Biblical Texts (Brill)
This portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library presents a complete Hebrew transcription and English translation of the non-Biblical texts, together with high-resolution images.
Digital Dead Sea Scrolls
The Israel Museum welcomes you to the Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project, allowing users to examine and explore these most ancient manuscripts from Second Temple times at a level of detail never before possible. The website gives users access to searchable, fast-loading, high-resolution images of the scrolls, as well as short explanatory videos and background information on the texts and their history. Five complete scrolls from the Israel Museum have been digitized for the project at this stage and are now accessible online: The Great Isaiah Scroll, The War Scroll, The Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, The Temple Scroll, and The Community Rule Scroll.
Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library
Free online digitized virtual library of the Dead Sea Scrolls provided by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Paleo-Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls
This website provides an access to the article, the palaeographic tables produced using LaTeX, a digital access to the images of the hebrew letters and paleo-hebrew fonts.
Flavius Josephus Online
Online version of Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary (edited by Steve Mason) with the addition of the Greek text in the form of Niese's editio major: Benedikt Niese, Flavii Josephi opera (7 volumes, Berlin 1885-1895).

Loeb Classical Library This link opens in a new window
250 ancient Greek and Latin authors in original language and in English translation.

The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha
The mandate of the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha is to develop and publish electronic editions of the best critical texts of the "Old Testament" Pseudepigrapha and related literature.
Early Jewish Writings (Peter Kirby)
"...Jewish documents from antiquity with translations, introductions, and links." Source of many public domain texts of the Tanakh, Deuterocanon, Pseudepigrapha, Philo and Josephus