Exegetical Papers: 6. Finding Books

Use the Woodruff catalog to explore critical schools of Bible scholarship.  Use a keyword approach as much as possible.

Overview:
Guides to Biblical Scholarship series

• General series
• New Testament series
• Old Testament series

Examples of critical schools:

• Redaction Criticism
• Feminist criticism
• Socio-rhetorical criticism
• Rhetorical criticism 
• Narrative Criticism
• Reader-response criticism
• Social scientific criticism

Common topics for critical schools:

• narration in the bible
• bible canon
• bible social conditions
• bible comparative studies
• bible and literature
• bible as literature
• bible language style
• bible criticism interpretation 16th century
• exodus hermeneutics
• islamic interpretations
• synoptic problem
• two source hypothesis synoptics 
• q hypothesis synoptics

Use keywords in the Woodruff catalog and examine results. There are thousands of subjects but here is a list of common ones and how they are "formed." Note the N T and O T and quotation marks. 

Patterns to follow: 

• bible n t matthew feminist criticism 
• bible n t john
• palestine social conditions
• bible o t psalms
• ethics in the bible
• "women in the bible" 
• bible contemporary events
• marriage biblical teaching 
• "slavery in the bible"
• healing in the bible
• jesus christ passion
• lord's supper bible
• messiah n t 
• dead sea scrolls
• judaism history post-exilic
• history inter-testamental
• temple jerusalem
• bible canon
• adam biblical figure
• mary blessed virgin
• sarah biblical matriarch  

If you find a book in the Woodruff Catalog that you'd like to borrow, make a note of the call number and the floor where the book is located, and browse around the area for other resources on the same subject

WorldCat is a database of all the materials owned by libraries all over the country. If the Woodruff Library does not carry the book or article you need, you can use WorldCat to see if another library in the area has it.

If using WorldCat off campus, use this link: WorldCat Through this interface, youwill be able to link directly to Woodruff's interlibrary loan service and it will populate the book/article informatin for you.

Note: You can request an Interlibrary Loan directly from worldcat. Just click on Send Request to ILLIAD and log into your Interlibrary Loan account to request it.

To find books about specific parts of the Bible, use the following format for a subject search

For Old Testament books:

Bible O.T. [Name of Book] -- Commentaries

Bible O.T. [Name of Book] -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.

For New Testament books:

Bible N. T. [Name of Book] -- Commentaries

Bible N. T. [Name of Book] -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Here are the three main patterns for searching the catalog by subject:

[name of book] AND commentaries
[name of book] AND criticism
[name of book] AND theology

Genesis AND theology
Pentateuch AND commentaries
Gospels AND commentaries 
John AND commentaries 
John AND criticism
John AND theology

Use the Woodruff catalog to locate books on texts, passages and sections of the Bible. Be sure to use commentaries to review critical approaches to texts.

Critical treatments of Bible texts:

• bible n t criticism interpretation
• bible o t  job criticism interpretation 
• bible n t epistles paul criticism interpretation 
• bible women criticism interpretation 
• bible criticism textual
• bible n t mark narrative
• bible n t hermeneutics 

Note also that you can combine subjects with criticism interpretation” in keyword searches.

• bible evil criticism 
• biblical teaching family criticism 
• bible early criticism interpretation