Background to the Bible on the Web

I've re-organised the Biblical Studies page on the Tyndale site at
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/links_Biblical.htm
so that it is now subdivided by the following specialities:

Ancient Near Eastern Background
Egyptian Background
Graeco-Roman Background
Jewish Background
Early Church and Gnostic Background

The links are all there on the site for you to see so I won't bore
you with them all, but there are a few important highlights:



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Ancient Near Eastern Background
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Archaeology sites are becoming more important, as people realise
that publication on paper is too little, too late, and too expensive,
especially for primary site reports. Keep up to date with:

Archaeology email discussion lists at
http://www.people.ku.edu/~jyounger/archlists.html

Kevin Green's "Electronic Companion" to archaeology
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~nktg/wintro/
A general introduction to the whole subject of archaeology.

Archaeology on the Net
http://www.serve.com/archaeology/neast.html
A large number of links to ANE and other archaeology sites

ANE texts appear on the web and then disappear. A great pity.
Most of the ones which are still there are listed at
The Internet Ancient History Source Book
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook.html


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Graeco-Roman Background
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Almost all ancient Greek texts can now be read and searched
on the web, with links to lexicons and gramatical analysis.

Use Perseus for Papyri:
List at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Texts/papyri.html
Search engine at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/txtcomplex?&display=Latin+transliteration

Use TLG for texts:
(this needs a licence - tell your library you need one)
http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/terranova/weblogin
Tick the box "Link to Perseus" and all the Greek words
will be linked to Perseus' lexicon and morphology engine.

Perseus now has Latin gramatical analysis as well as Greek,
and many other useful features, but as the site grows the
resources are hard to find. Use our links at: http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/links_Biblical.htm#GraecoRomanBackground



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Jewish Background
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Background texts are important, but often difficult to find.
The following collections make like much easier.

Ancient Jewish Accounts of Jesus
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/JewishJesus/
Josephus, Celcus, Tertullian, Talmud, Toledoth Yeshu
- full texts with introductions.

Historical Backgrounds to the Gospels and Life of Jesus
http://www.bible.org/docs/nt/topics/backgrounds/toc.htm#TopOfPage
Extra-Biblical Citations from Jewish and some Graeco-Roman sources.

Into His Own - Perspective on the World of Jesus
http://www-rci.rutgers.edu/~religion/iho/
Citations from background texts, organised by subject.
This is a massive book-sized project by Mahlon H. Smith

My own work on Rabbinic background is at
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Brewer/PPages/TRENT/
I'm applying modern dating techniques to rabbinic texts
to isolate and comment on traditions from the NT era.