The Atla Religion Database is the main research database for religious, theological, and biblical studies topics.

The main resources Atla indexes include:

• journal articles
• books
• book chapters
• conference proceedings
• book reviews
• dissertations

The majority of the journal articles in Atla Religion Database are available full-text.  For resources such as books, book chapters, and some journal articles,  you will need to use full-text options links to verify that ZSR has access to the book or article you have found. 

In this instance, when you click on the WFU Full Text Options link, you will be taken to the ZSR Library catalog record for the book in which this chapter appears, Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity.

If you have problems accessing any resource, please don't hesitate to contact us!

When selecting journal articles for a list of results in a research database, make sure you are selecting articles from scholarly/academic/peer-reviewed journals rather than from popular magazines.  Indicators of a scholarly article can include:

• author: usually a professor or researcher
  • look for author credentials under the article title, at the bottom of the first page of the article, or at the end of the article before the bibliography.  Or google their name!
• length: at least 10 pages, up to 25-30 pages
• publisher: university, professional, or scholarly association press
  • Harvard, Brill, Society of Biblical Literature, etc... see an explanation of why this is important and a list of appropriate publishers at the Publishers tab on this guide.
• citations: arguments and quotations are properly cited and there is a bibliography appropriate for the length of the article
• advertising: journal does not have advertisements
  • exceptions for conference and books or journals
• editorial process: journal explains editorial requirements and their peer-review process

Using these criteria, let's take a look at an article from an issue of The Journal of Religion.

• author: the name of the author, Andrew Dole, can be found directly under the article title, along with the institution where he is a professor, Amherst College.  
• length: this article is 28 pages in length, so easily meets the minimum of 10 pages
• publisher: the publisher of this journal is the University of Chicago Press, which is a highly respected university publisher
• citations: this article has 80 footnotes, which look to appropriately cite the works used in the article and include extended discussions.  While each footnote may not contain a cited source, some footnotes include more than one citation.  This number is appropriate for an article of this length.
• advertising: there is no advertising within the pages of this article.  You can see the guidelines for advertising in this journal on their website.
• editorial process: you can view their instructions for authors on the journal website

Because this article meets all of the criteria listed, it would be appropriate for use in your paper, as long as it meets the main criteria: it helps you with your research project!

The same techniques that are used to locate books and films in the ZSR Library catalog will work to locate journal articles in the databases.  While some databases have special features based upon the subject area they cover (Atla's scripture search or Historical Abstracts' historical period search), most databases have an advanced search page that allows searchers to use truncation (*), OR, AND, and other general search techniques.

While Atla Religion is the primary database for religious, theological, and biblical studies research, there are other databases that you will find helpful depending on your topic.

Religious Studies Databases

Historical Studies Databases

Primary Source Databases