Electronic Tools and Ancient Near East Archives (ETANA)

http://www.etana.org/coretexts

From the home page:

The civilizations of the ancient Near East produced the world's earliest written texts — in hieroglyphs, cuneiform, and alphabets — with which they described the first empires, recorded the first legal codifications, preserved the first love songs, and registered the first contracts, among states or individuals. Not surprisingly, these cultures elicited broad curiosity among later civilizations, our own not excepted, resulting in a flood of evaluation, scholarly or otherwise. While the discovery of new texts always leads to new evaluation, it is remarkable how assessments arrived at decades ago continue to be of much value, not only because they often carry editions of original documents, but because they contain insights minted freshly after first exposure to major documents.

ETANA (Electronic Texts and Ancient Near Eastern Archives) has digitized, and continues to digitize, texts selected as valuable for teaching and research relating to ancient Near Eastern studies. We have selected primarily editions that are outside of copyright, or with the permission of copyright holders. While the new electronic editions we have produced are under copyright, the ETANA project chooses to make these freely available for noncommercial teaching and research purposes.

Albright Institute of Archaeological Research

The Albright Institute of Archaeological Research has made open access vols. 8-15 (2003-2010) its newsletter:


http://www.aiar.org/publications.html

Scroll to the bottom of the page for links to the various volumes. 

(Limited) open access links to the writings of individual scholars

There is an increasing movement of scholars posting their scholarship online (open access). Already there are platforms such as academia.edu and linkedin.com. For links to the works of individual scholars (e.g., Tov, Knight), see the list at AWOL another source:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#inbox/133bcffff3f2c5ff

Aula Orientalis 9, 15, 17-18 (1991, 1997, 1999-2000))

A limited number of volumes of Aula Orientalis are now open access, i.e. 9, 15, 17-18 (1991, 1997, 1999-2000).

http://www.aulaorientalis.org/

Concordance of the Sahidic NT

A digitized concordance of the Sahidic NT (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 124, 173, 183, 185; vols. 1-3a, b, 1950-1959) is available at:
http://alinsuciu.com/2011/11/11/concordance-of-the-sahidic-new-testament/

Digital Dictionaries of South Asia

All of the following languages have dictionaries online from the DDSA:

http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/list.html

Assamese	Khowar	Pali	Tamil
Baluchi	Konkani	Panjabi	Telugu
Bengali	Lushai	Pashto	Torwali
English	Malayalam	Persian	Urdu
Gujarati	Manipuri	Rajasthani	Comparative
Hindi	Marathi	Sanskrit
Kannada	Nepali	Sindhi
Kashmiri	Oriya	Sinhala

The comparative dictionaries are Dravidian and Indo-Aryan

Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions

CSAI has in its repository digitized images from the British, Beirut National, and Yemeni Museums as well as inscriptions from Jordan. Registration is required but free.

http://csai.humnet.unipi.it/csai/html/index.html

Here's a blurb from the home page:

The objective of the CSAI project, which began in 1999 is to collect the published Ancient South Arabian inscriptions. New corpora have been added in recent years: the catalogue of the British Museum inscriptions, and those of a number of Yemeni museums. For the first time, texts written in minuscule writing are also included into the database. Up to the present, the published corpus of non-monumental texts from south Arabia is relatively small, but a big edition of new texts is going to be published.

Corpus of South Arabian Inscriptions

CSAI has in its repository digitized images from the British, Beirut National, and Yemeni Museums as well as inscriptions from Jordan. Registration is required but free.

http://csai.humnet.unipi.it/csai/html/index.html

Here's a blurb from the home page:

The objective of the CSAI project, which began in 1999 is to collect the published Ancient South Arabian inscriptions. New corpora have been added in recent years: the catalogue of the British Museum inscriptions, and those of a number of Yemeni museums. For the first time, texts written in minuscule writing are also included into the database. Up to the present, the published corpus of non-monumental texts from south Arabia is relatively small, but a big edition of new texts is going to be published.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

By now there are many search engines for theses and dissertations. The latest is the NDLTD http://www.ndltd.org/

From the home page, one has the choice of two engines:

• Scirus ETD search http://www.ndltd.org/serviceproviders/scirus-etd-search

"A comprehensive scientific research tool from Elsevier, Scirus ETD Search provides an advanced search that can narrow results to theses and dissertations as well as provide access to related scholarly resources."

• VTLS visualizer http://thumper.vtls.com:6090/

"This is a dynamic search and discovery platform with sophisticated functionality.  You can sort by relevance, title, and date.  In the current implementation, faceted searches are available by language, continent, country, date, format and source institution.  Additional facets, such as subjects or departments, can be added if desired."

A search of both engines found my doctoral dissertation, but neither had my master's theses (US thesis or UK thesis). VTLS listed the dissertation, with option to purchase. SCIRUS gives the impression that the dissertation was completed in 1970 (bold font) rather than 2005 (the latter is in regular font). Clicking the link gives further information, i.e. bibliographical details of the dissertation as well as its subsequent publication. The catch is that the categories are in French, but if you can't make it out there's a button that translates it into English.

The website gives URLs to other search engines.

Ancient Israel (Chicago Oriental Institute)

The Chicago OI has just published open access a book entitled Ancient Israel: Highlights from the Collections of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. The book is essentially as history of Megiddo as charted by the archaeological finds from the EBA to the Byzantine period.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/oimp31.pdf

Filología Neotestamentaria

For NT readers, Filología Neotestamentaria is open access. An annual publication of the University of Cordoba, Spain, it features articles on:
"...every aspect of New Testament Greek philology, namely textual criticism, grammar, semantics, lexicography and eventually semiotics and its relationship with Classical or Hellenistic Greek."


http://www.bsw.org/Filologia%20Neotestamentaria

(Some articles are in English)

Biblica

Biblica has, since 1998, been published on an open access basis by the Pontifical Biblical Institute. It features articles on the OT, NT, and Second Temple Period as well as book reviews.

http://www.bsw.org/Biblica/

now open access: Irish Biblical Studies

All volumes of Irish Biblical Studies are now open access via BiblicalStudies.org.uk:

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/articles_ibs-01.php

Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies

Over 1000 journals are open access. See the hyperlinks at AWOL:
http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.com/2009/10/alphabetical-list-of-open-access.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Awol-TheAncientWorldOnline+%28AWOL+-+The+Ancient+World+Online%29

Open access articles and books from BiblicalStudies.org.uk

BiblicalStudies.org.uk provides many open access articles and books online. The articles tend to range from the 1970s to 1990s and are largely from an evangelical perspective.

http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/articles.php

Loads of open access oldies but goodies

Many, many of older scholarly works are accessible, with many having PDF download options as well. Examples include Eichhorn, Ewald, Budde, Wellhausen, Driver, BDB/Gesenius, and Briggs:

https://docs.google.com/View?docid=d9xh4s8_21x7n3f&pli=1

The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls

This resource was originally posted on 9/27/2011, but the site may have been updated. This link

http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/
has links to the Great Isaiah Scroll, War Scroll, Temple Scroll, Community Rule Scroll, and Habakkuk Commentary. The site has videos as well.

Open access Latin texts from the Packard Humanities Institute

This one's a little far afield from the ancient Near East, but for those interested in reading Latin, the Packard Humanities Institute offers quite a number of Classical Latin authors.

latin.packhum.org/index

Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (CSCO): Scriptores Coptici Online

From the Oriental Research Archives: Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (CSCO): Scriptores Coptici Online, vols. 1-7, 9-10, downloadable as PDFs:

vol. 1 = series secunda, tomus II, textus: Iohannes Leipoldt, W. Crum (eds.), Sinuthii archimandritae vita et opera omnia, I, Paris, 1906.

http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/CSSC_1.pdf

vol. 2 = series secunda, tomus IV, textus: Iohannes Leipoldt, W. Crum (eds.), Sinuthii archimandritae vita et opera omnia, III, Paris, 1908.

http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/CSSC_2.pdf

vol. 3 = series tertia, tomus I, textus: I. Balestri, H. Hyvernat (eds.), Acta martyrum, I, Paris, 1907.

http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/CSSC_3.pdf

vol. 4 = series tertia, tomus I, versio: I. Balestri, H. Hyvernat (eds.), Acta martyrum, I, Paris, 1908 (Reprint: Louvain, 1960).

http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/CSSC_4.pdf

vol. 5 = series secunda, tomus V, textus: Iohannes Leipoldt, W. Crum (eds.), Sinuthii archimandritae vita et opera omnia, IV, Paris, 1913.

http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/CSSC_5.pdf

vol. 6 = series tertia, tomus II, textus: I. Balestri, H. Hyvernat (eds.), Acta martyrum, II, Paris, 1924

http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/CSSC_6.pdf

vol. 7 = series tertia, tomus VII, textus: L. Th. Lefort (ed.), S. Pachomii vita bohairice scripta, Paris, 1925.

http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/CSSC_7.pdf

vols. 9-10 = series tertia, tomus VIII, textus: L. Th. Lefort (ed.), S. Pachomii vitae sahidice scriptae, Paris, 1933.

http://oilib.uchicago.edu/books/CSSC_9-10.pdf

British Museum Collection Database

The British Museum's nearly 2,000,000 objects are are now searchable, of which over 600,000 have one or more images.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database.aspx

OAPEN Library

From the homepage:

OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The OAPEN Library aims to improve the visibility and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe.

http://www.oapen.org/home

Since the library covers such a broad range of studies, it will be hit or miss for biblical studies per se. Still, the books are peer-reviewed and the site is searchable.

Scripture Bulletin

The Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain has announced its open-access, peer-reviewed journal, Scripture Bulletin.

http://cbagb.org.uk/about-scripture-bulletin

The Homer Multitext

For Homeric studies see now the Homeric Multitext, which provides a number of resources including diplomatic editions of manuscripts of the Iliad.

http://www.homermultitext.org/

More from the home page:

The Homer Multitext seeks to present the textual transmission of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey in a historical framework. Such a framework is needed to account for the full reality of a complex medium of oral performance that underwent many changes over a long period of time. These changes, as reflected in the many texts of Homer, need to be understood in their many different historical contexts. The Homer Multitext provides ways to view these contexts both synchronically and diachronically.

The Homer Multitext is a long-term project emphasizing collaborative research (we are particularly interested in undergraduate research), openly licensed data, and innovative uses of technology.The Homer Multitext welcomes collaboration in the form of diplomatic editions, images of historical documents, and translations. All material must be openly licensed and attribution will be given to the contributors.

Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/www.academic.bible.com

Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/www.academic.bible.com has made available an astounding collection of online resources for biblical studies, including a Hebrew text that follows Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, and Greek texts following Rahlf's LXX and the Nestle-Aland 27th ed. of the Novum Testamentum Graece, and a Latin Bible after the Vulgate. The website has further resources.

http://www.academic-bible.com/en/service/about-us/

Bible Software Review

Bible Review Software is one of a number of Bible software sights that offers benefits such as appraising existing programs.

http://www.bsreview.org/

Palestinian Archaeological Databank and Information System (PADIS)

The Palestinian Archaeological Databank and Information System (PADIS) offers maps and various publications on archaeology in this region. The site concentrates on Jericho and Jordan.

http://www.lasapienzatojericho.it/Padis_old/Padis_Ind.htm

2 new atlases

The Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land
http://daahl.ucsd.edu/DAAHL/
interfaces with Google Maps. It:

...brings together experts in information technology including Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the archaeology of the Holy Land (modern Israel, Palestine, Jordan, southern Lebanon, Syria and the Sinai Peninsula) to create the first on-line digital atlas of the region held sacred to the three great monotheistic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Using the power of spatial information systems such as Google Maps and Google Earth, GIS, the tens of thousands of recorded archaeological sites for the region - from the remote prehistoric periods to the early 20th century - will be entered into a comprehensive database along with site maps, photographs and artifacts. The historical and archaeological content for this project will be developed by a team of over 30 international scholars working in the region, helping to provide the data used to create the Atlas. This website and its content will serve as the prototype "knowledge node" of a more comprehensive Digital Archaeological Atlas Network for the Mediterranean region.

ArchAtlas
http://www.archatlas.dept.shef.ac.uk/Home.php
consists of a journal, themes, and an atlas relating to archaeology around the globe, using Google Earth.

Iconography of Deities and Demons in the ANE (IDD)

http://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/index.php

From the website:

Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East (IDD) is designed as a companion to the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD), edited by Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 2nd edition 1999). Its focus will be on visual sources, which are essential for interpreting the religious symbol systems of antiquity.

IDD will not restrict itself to DDD's selection of lemmata. As a matter of fact, numerous DDD lemmata do not have visual correlatives; on the other hand, visual sources attest 'icon types', which cannot always be identified or labeled with a divine name. Moreover, while DDD demonstrates how many of the Near Eastern deities and demons have found their place into the Bible in some way or another, there are others, including major deities, who are not mentioned in the Bible and thus remain absent from DDD.

Our project aims at restoring the balance by establishing a selection of lemmata on an historical and archaeological basis: IDD should refer to all major deities and demons of the areas covered, regardless of whether they are attested in the Bible or not. On the other hand, in order to control the material boundaries of IDD, we take the 'biblical world' to cover the Eastern Mediterranean and Near Eastern area to the extent that were part of the biblical writers' geographical horizon. Wherever possible, reference will be made to visual evidence attested on objects recovered from known archaeological contexts in Palestine/Israel.

Open access series: SBL Ancient Near East Monographs

Here's the introductory paragraph of this new resource:

http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/Books_ANEmonographs.aspx

The focus of this ambitious series is on the ancient Near East, including ancient Israel and its literature, from the early Neolithic to the early Hellenistic eras. Studies that are heavily philological or archaeological are both suited to this series, and can take full advantage of the hypertext capabilities of “born digital” publication. Multiple author and edited volumes as well as monographs are accepted. Proposals and manuscripts may be submitted in either English or Spanish. Manuscripts are peer reviewed by at least two scholars in the area before acceptance. Published volumes will be held to the high scholarly standards of the SBL and the Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente. The partnership between the SBL and the Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente was initiated under the auspices of SBL’s International Cooperation Initiative (ICI) and represents the type of international scholarly exchange that is the goal of ICI.

This series is the ideal place to publish for authors and editors who wish their work to be widely read. Works published in the series are (and will remain permanently) open access. This ensures the widest possible readership for these works.

---

Thus far three monographs have been published, two in Spanish (one dealing with the relationship between the Negeb and Egypt, Asia, and the Levant; the other on Egypt and Asia) and one in English (Lenzi's Reading Akkadian Hymns and Prayers: An Introduction, http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/9781589835962.pdf )

ANE sites on Google Earth

Uppsala University has done the scholarly community a great service by tagging a staggering number of ANE sites to Google Earth.

http://www.anst.uu.se/olofpede/Links

Dorot Foundation digitized scans of some Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dorot Foundation is in the process of digitizing the collection of the DSS at the Shrine of the Book museum in Jerusalem. At present only three scrolls are available (the Aleppo Codex, Isaiah Scroll, and Temple Scroll), but the Foundation has done an impressive job. Clicking the link to the Isaiah and Temple Scrolls produces a scan in which shows the scrolls as one would read them in a synagogue, i.e. they are partially open. At the bottom of the window is a button, which by moving to the left or right, moves the scroll either frontwards or backwards. Similarly, the Aleppo Codex appears as a book, and clicking a button advances or retreats through it leaf by leaf. There's also an option for zooming, but it is fairly limited.

http://www.imj.org.il/shrine_center/

American Archaeology Abroad

This website is from a non-profit group that excavates in the Near East/West Asia. It is oriented towards scholars, students, and the public.

http://www.americanarchaeologyabroad.org/

The Friedberg Cairo Geniza Project

Those interested in accessing digital images of the Cairo Geniza will be glad to know that the Friedberg Genizah Project has a website with scans of this eclectic corpus, e.g., biblical and extrabiblical texts and even recipes for Kosher cheese.

http://www.genizah.org/index.htm

Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period

Here's in introductory information from the homepage about this important open-access resource:

http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/rinap/

Numerous royally commissioned texts were composed between 744 BC and 669 BC, a period during which Assyria became the dominant power in southwestern Asia. Six hundred to six hundred and fifty such inscriptions are known today. The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) Project, under the direction of Professor Grant Frame of the University of Pennsylvania, will publish in print and online all of the known royal inscriptions that were composed during the reigns of the Assyrian kings Tiglath-pileser III (744-727 BC), Shalmaneser V (726-722 BC), Sargon II (721-705 BC), Sennacherib (704-681 BC), and Esarhaddon (680-669 BC), rulers whose deeds were also recorded in the Bible and in some classical sources. The individual texts range from short one-line labels to lengthy, detailed inscriptions with over 500 lines (2500 words) of text.

These Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions (744-669 BC) represent only a small, but important part of the vast Neo-Assyrian text corpus. They are written in the Standard Babylonian dialect of Akkadian and provide valuable insight into royal exploits, both on the battlefield and at home, royal ideology, and Assyrian religion. Most of our understanding of the political history of Assyria, and to some extent of Babylonia, comes from these sources. Because this large corpus of texts has not previously been published in one place, the RINAP Project will provide up-to-date editions (with English translations) of Assyrian royal inscriptions from the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (744-727 BC) to the reign of Esarhaddon (680-669 BC) in five print volumes and online, in a fully lemmatized and indexed format. The aim of the project is to make this vast text corpus easily accessible to scholars, students, and the general public. RINAP Online will allow those interested in Assyrian culture, history, language, religion, and texts to efficiently search Akkadian and Sumerian words appearing in the inscriptions and English words used in the translations. Project data will be fully integrated into the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) and the Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus (Oracc).

The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded the RINAP Project research grants in 2008 and in 2010 to help carry out its work. The publications of the RINAP Project are modeled on those of the now-defunct Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia (RIM) Project and carry on where its Assyrian Periods sub-series (RIMA) ended.

Journal: Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception

This homepage of this new open-access journal reads thus:

relegere, v. to go over again in reading, speech, or thought; to read, relate or recite again

Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception is an independent, open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of innovative research in reception history, broadly conceived, within and across religious traditions.

http://relegere.org/index.php/relegere/index

Bibliography search engine: BiBIL

Biblical Bibliography of Lausanne (BiBIL) is now open access:

http://www3.unil.ch/bibil/public/

It features a standard and advanced search line for English, Hebrew, and Greek characters, and one can search in French, English, and German. Moreover, one can set limiters including books, series, journals, articles, and electronic media such as CD-roms.

My initial impression is very favorable: a search on author name "Richter" returned 63 hits.

partially open access journal: Archaeology

The Archaeological Institute of America has made partial open access to its journal Archaeology Magazine:

http://www.archaeology.org/

The magazine features articles from archaeology across the globe.

Australian Biblical Review

Some issues of Australian Biblical Review are now open access:
http://www.fbs.org.au/abr.html

Information from the home page:
Australian Biblical Review is published by the Fellowship for Biblical Studies Inc. and, since 1951, has provided a forum for biblical scholars to make their research available to the international scholarly community.

Although the majority of articles published are from Australian biblical scholars, issues include contributions from non-Australian authors, and many important contributions to biblical scholarship have been published in ABR over the years by scholars from around the world.

Australian Biblical Review is published annually in October. It has a wide international readership and can be found in the great majority of theological libraries that have a good holding of journals of biblical scholarship. ABR is a refereed journal.

2 new open access Hebrew grammars

John A. Cook and Robert D. Holmstedt have kindly made freely available two Hebrew grammars.

The first is Biblical Hebrew: A Student Grammar (Draft Copy, 2009)
http://individual.utoronto.ca/holmstedt/textbook/BHSG2011.pdf

This book contains 30 lessens, which represents the number of weeks in a typical US university academic year.

The second is Biblical Hebrew: An Illustrated Introduction
As with the former volume, this text adopts a non-confessional stance and seeks to streamline the grammar to the essentials, leaving it to the instructor to answer questions which students may raise over the lacunae. One example is that it has no formal discussion of weak verbs. Rather this topic is "relegated" to an appendix. It seems to me that the truly unique aspect is coupling the lessons with exercises that have color cartoons and ask students to answer questions based on it. Thus it introduces a visual dimension that may well enhance comprehension. The book has 50 lessons and 13 readings.

This book has two PDF downloads:

Lessons, Appendices, & Glossaries
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8477225/Textbook/BHII_Lessons_July2011.pdf

Readings
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8477225/Textbook/BHII_Readings_July2011.pdf

Their website also announces an instructor's edition to be released this summer as well as information on how to access high-resolution versions.
http://ancienthebrewgrammar.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/hebrew-textbooks-update-2/

New open access journal: NEMO

NEMO stands for Near-Eastern Musicology Online. Here's a description from the website:

http://nemo-online.org/archives/15

NEMO addresses traditional and contemporary forms of music from the Near and Middle East in the widest sense of the term as well as other forms that may enrich our initial goal. Fields covered extend from archaeomusicology to analytical musicology, including historical, educational, ethnomusicological, anthropological, etc., aspects of it.

Free access to ZAW in July 2011

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft has a deal this month, viz. free access to all of its articles. To register, go to:
http://www.degruyter.com/journals/zaw/detailEn.cfm

The Archaeological News Network

From AWOL:

The Archaeology News Network is a non-profit daily updated online newspaper featuring all the latest stories and headlines relating primarily to Archaeology, Anthropology and Paleontology published on the World Wide Web.

We track and aggregate news items by their published dates, giving full credit to their respective authors and newspapers/journals from which they have been sourced.

Please note that the full copyright of all articles and photographs published on this site remains the exclusive property of the authors, photographers and organizations cited as the primary sources found below each post and may not be reproduced or republished without their express permission.

The website aggregates publications from the three disciplines from all over the world, but it is searchable.

http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/

The Bible Tool

The Bible Tool (http://crosswire.org/study/index.jsp) is "a free, evolving open source tool for exploring the Bible and related texts online. Created by CrossWire Bible Society, the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Bible Society as the first in a number of coming Bible engagement tools using an XML standard called OSIS, we provide power searching capabilities and cutting edge tools to help you engage the Bible at a deeper level."

The site has links for lots of freebies, e.g., The Sword Project, Unbound Bible, Bible Gateway, Crosswalk, and the Blue Letter Bible.

Directory of Open Access Journals

The Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/) provides links to all open access journals, or at least those that it is aware of. The website at present has 6679 journals, 2957 of which are article-searchable, and 584,857 articles.

The Directory receives journals from all disciplines, so you can search by journal name or by country. The site has a search field for articles as well.

SBL Greek NT critical edition

SBL and Logos have just published a Unicode critical edition of the New Testament. The soft-copy version is freely downloadable:

https://secure.aidcvt.com/sbl/ProdDetails.asp?ID=069022C&PG=1&Type=BL&PCS=SBL

I is edited by one rather than by a committee. Pace Michael W. Holmes, the editor, this is a regrettable deficit in what is otherwise a wholeheartedly welcome addition to the repository of open access resources. Downloadable versions (text and critical apparatus) include one that syncs with Logos, PDF, XML, OSIS, etc. Moreover several of the options come as Zip files for a speedy download.

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

It is now possible to access full-text dissertations and theses through PDQT/ProQuest:

http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/

The dissertations and theses are from all disciplines, so it's better to know the author and/or title. There is an advanced search engine which has further options, e.g., keywords.

So far this does not appear particularly valuable. A search on the keywords "Old Testament," "Hebrew Bible," and "New Testament" returned only six hits (total). Nevertheless the dissertations were recent and were from some top rate universities (e.g., Yale). Hopefully, ProQuest will make more available soon.

The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project

Hebrew Union College has an online lexicon for Aramaic lemmata and extending to the Targums.

http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/

Link for open access Egyptology sources

Michael Tilgner has compiled a list of open access sources for Egyptology on behalf of the Egyptologists' Electronic Forum.

http://www.egyptologyforum.org/EEFDigijournals.html

Ejournal: Rosetta

Rosetta is a publication from the University of Birmingham. From the website:

>>>

The Rosetta journal is aimed at postgraduates and professionals from a variety of historical and archaeological disciplines.

Within Rosetta you will find articles covering a wide scope of archaeology, history and classics subjects, book reviews, museum and conference reports. There are also links to other sites of interest and forthcoming seminars and conferences.

>>>

Not all the articles relate to the ANE.

http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/

Resource for Rabbinic literature: Rabbinic Traditions

David Instone-Brewer has done it again. Here's online access to many rabbinic texts, with search capacity and links to chapter from his TRENT monograph on the dating of the early literature.

http://instonebrewer.com/RabbinicTraditions/

The Virtual World Project

The Virtual World Project provides video clips and stills of many archaeological sites in Israel and Jordan, and is updated when possible. The website is impressive, featuring panorama shots, archaeological plans, and even photos of epigraphic significance (e.g., some of the Lachish letters).

Presently for Israel the website goes no farther north than `Izbet Sartah.

http://www.virtualworldproject.org/vr/core/toc.html

2 new publications from IBR

The Institute for Biblical Research (IBR) is now making freely available online some of its publications.

For studies go to:
http://www.ibr-bbr.org/IBR_Studies.aspx

For IBR's newsletter (mostly conference announcements), go to:
http://www.ibr-bbr.org/IBR_News.aspx

Tyndale House toolbar

Tyndale House makes freely available a toolbar with many useful functions:

The free Tyndale Toolbar brings together many of the best Bible tools on the web.

• Bibles: Quick access to the main commercial Bibles and 70+ other translations.
• Languages: Quick dictionaries and full lexicons for modern & ancient languages (Greek, Hebrew, Coptic, Syriac etc, French, German, Thesuarus etc)
• Books and articles: Online libraries, specialist theology libraries and article subject searches.
• More help: Links to the best of the web for Biblical Studies, preaching and teaching, concentrating on the best of the free.
• News: Notices of events, publications and opportunities for jobs and scholarships

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Bibliography Database

Via Wikipedia, an annotated bibliography of the Near East and Egypt is now being developed. Search existing bibliographies for sources or to get an idea of what a book is about. You may also add to existing bibliographies or begin your own.

http://ancientbibliographies.libs.uga.edu/wiki/Main_Page

Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon now online

Edward William Lane's An Arabic-English Lexicon is now online:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2002.02.0015

It is searchable and in Unicode fonts.

Nag Hammadi texts online

Claremont Libraries Digital Collection has made available online digitized photos of the Nag Hammadi texts, searchable by codex, codex series, and subject. There are also many photos of places and individuals associated with the texts.

http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/collection.php?alias=/nha

Oriental Institute News & Notes

The newsletter of the OI is accessible online:

http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/nn/

Journal: The Bible and Critical Theory

Newly online and open access, The Bible and Critical Theory, per its website:

is an exploratory and innovative online scholarly journal for biblical studies, published by the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar. The journal explores the intersections between critical theory, understood in the broad sense, and biblical studies. It publishes peer-reviewed articles that investigate the contributions from critical theory to biblical studies, and contributions from biblical studies to critical theory. The journal has an active series of book reviews, which are published as they are ready.

http://www.relegere.org/index.php/bct/index

Teaching Classical Languages

The newly open access journal, Teaching Classical Languages, is designed for teachers of Latin and Greek:

http://tcl.camws.org/

Here's the website's mission statement:

Teaching Classical Languages is the only peer-reviewed electronic journal dedicated to the teaching and learning of Latin and ancient Greek. It addresses the interests of all Latin and Greek teachers, graduate students, coordinators, and administrators. Teaching Classical Languages welcomes articles offering innovative practice and methods, advocating new theoretical approaches, or reporting on empirical research in teaching and learning Latin and Greek. As an electronic journal, Teaching Classical Languages has a unique global outreach. It offers authors and readers a multimedia format that more fully illustrates the topics discussed, and provides hypermedia links to related information and websites. Articles not only contribute to successful Latin and Greek pedagogy, but draw on relevant literature in language education, applied linguistics, and second language acquisition for an ongoing dialogue with modern language educators.

From Taylor & Francis: PDFs on How to Get Published, Get Your Research Read, and Referee an Article

Taylor & Francis has made available online the following PDFs:

• How to Get Published
• How to Get Your Research Read
• How to Referee an Article

http://www.tandf.co.uk/libsite/news/#howto

ETANA & Abzu

Electronic Tools and Ancient Near East Archives (ETANA) has many ancient NE texts available as well as publications on such texts and ancient NE archaeology. Create an account at no charge. The Abzu database comes with.

http://www.etana.org/home

A Bibliography of Semitic Linguistics

Gregorio del Olmo Lete has published a bibliography of Semitic Linguistics on the web. It divides into basic categories such as Akkadian, Northwest Semitics, Comparative Semitics, etc. Access it at:

http://www.telefonica.net/web2/aulaorientalis/index.html

New open access journals: PEQ, AJBA, AUSS, So

The following journals have been published open access:

Palestinian Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement (1 [1869] - 40 [1908]):
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=Palestine%20Exploration%20Fund%20Quarterly%20Statement%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts

Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology (incomplete 1968-1975):
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org.uk/journal_ajba.php

Andrews University Seminary Studies (1 [1963] - 50 [2003]):
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/articles_auss_01.php

Studia orontica (1 [2008] - 8 [2010]):
http://studiaorontica.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=37

Ebla Digital Archives

Ca' Foscari University of Venice has now published online the Ebla archives in digital format:

http://virgo.unive.it/eblaonline/cgi-bin/home.cgi

From the website:

The aim of the Ebla Digital Archives [ EbDA ] database is to provide a digital edition of the entire corpus of cuneiform texts belonging to the Ebla Royal Archives. Texts are reproduced in the same sequence as in the individual volumes of the series Archivi Reali di Ebla – Testi published by the “Italian Archaeological Mission to Siria” of the Sapienza University of Rome. Compared with the hard copy publication, the digital edition provides harmonized transliterations, corrections and numerous collations made over the years by the team of epigraphers who cooperate with the Mission.

The project is presented as a work in progress. The ARET volumes currently included in the database will be gradually followed by other volumes published in the past years. Additional texts or portions of texts that have appeared in other series, in monographs or in journals will be also included in the database. Any suggestion by interested users will be highly appreciated.

The Liddell-Scott-Jones (aka LS) Lexicon is now available online at:

http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/lsj/#eid=1&context=lsj

This is the definitive lexicon for Classical Greek as well as for the Septuagint. It is published by Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, the website of which is worth a look:

http://www.tlg.uci.edu/

A blurb from the director of TLG:

The TLG version:

The TLG embarked into this project in 2006. Recognizing the fact that
LSJ is the most central reference work for all scholars and students
of ancient Greek, we decided that producing a fully corrected and
reliably accessible online version with links to TLG texts was a
worthwhile undertaking. The digital LSJ was a natural extension of our
larger and ongoing lemmatization project. In the process of improving
automatic recognition of all word forms in our texts, we have
digitized and extracted information such as headwords, meanings,
grammatical use from a large number of dictionaries. Making LSJ
available to the public was another step in this direction.

Digitization, markup and correction of LSJ proved to be far more time
consuming and demanding from a scholarly point of view than we
anticipated, hence the entire project took five years to complete. The
effort began by extracting identifiable sections of the text, such as
headwords and meanings, that we could proofread using TLG correction
software or by collating multiple digital versions. This approach was
helpful but not entirely effective. Ultimately, the bulk of editing
required a human eye. The final project contains a number of
enhancements compared to the printed version. A number of lower case
or ambigious entries have been converted to upper case and a large
number of typographical errors have ben corrected.A list of Corrigenda
will be posted soon. Sub-entries in the printed edition marked with
hyphens, have been expanded and treated as headwords. Greek words
(both headwords and Greek inside entries), and English definitions can
be searched and LSJ citations are linked to the TLG updated editions
(when possible). Nishad Prakash worked tirelessly to create an
attactive as well as user friendly interface.

We are very pleased to make this invaluable resource available free
and open to the scholarly community.

Maria Pantelia
TLG Director

Iconographic Fun from the Morgan Library and Museum

Here's a link to a web page from the Morgan Library and Museum that has high-quality photographs of 15 ancient NE seals dating from ca. 3000 BC to ca. 400 BC.

http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collectionsSeals.asp

New open access ANE texts from the OI

The Oriental Institute has just released several published translations of ancient Mesopotamian texts. Here are some of the most important:

• The Sumerian King List

http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/as/as11.html

• The Babylonian Genesis: The Story of Creation

http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/misc/genesis.html

• The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels

http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/misc/gilgamesh.html

• The Annals of Sennacherib

http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/oip/oip2.html

For a list of all OI publications, see:

http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/

Semitic Inscriptions Semitiques

The Semitic Inscriptions Semitiques database is now open access. From the website:

This website is a database of ancient texts written in Semitic languages and inscribed on various media: tablets, potteries, manuscripts, etc. It grants direct access to all kinds of information about these inscriptions: their origin, their age, their script... And of course, most importantly, the text itself, analyzed, translated, and annotated.

Without registration one can obtain basic information, including a low-resolution photograph of an inscription, its title, language, date, discovery site, and literary genre. The website is also searchable.

http://www.inscriptions-semitiques.com/home/index.php

open access: Jewish Bible Quarterly

From the webpage:

The Jewish Bible Quarterly provides timely, authoritative studies on biblical themes. As the only Jewish-sponsored English-language journal devoted exclusively to the Bible, it is an essential source of information for anyone working in Bible studies. The Journal publishes original articles, translations from scholarly Hebrew journals, book reviews, a triennial calendar of Bible reading and correspondence. All viewpoints are considered.

Issues online: 1996-2010

http://jbq.jewishbible.org/

Open access to Elektra

Elektra is a journal for the study of Ancient Greek and Roman Mythology and Religion from a philological, historical, anthropological, archaeological, linguistic or philosophical viewpoint. Access it at:

http://electra.lis.upatras.gr/

Open Access Publications of the Center for Hellenic Studies

For open access to the publications of the Center for Hellenic Studies, go to:

http://chs.harvard.edu/wa/pageR?tn=ArticleWrapper&bdc=12&mn=1166

Leicester Archaeology Theses

Theses from the University of Leicester are now available open access, but many are not from the ancient NE.

https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/4195/browse-date

'Atiqot - Publications of the Israel Antiquities Authority

After registration, the Israel Antiquities Authority's journal, `Atiqot, is freely available:

http://www.atiqot.org.il/