LibGuides: Primary Sources Main: Religion

Religion Around the World

Bible, King James version Browse or search the King James Version.
Bible, Martin Luther translation This version of the Luther translation of the Bible is derived from the edition published by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. Browse or search.
Bible, Revised Standard version Browse or search.
Book of Mormon Browse or search.
Christian Classics Ethereal Library Online texts of hundreds of classic Christian writings. Early Christianity, later history of the church, theology, and more.
Digital Quaker Collection A digital library containing full text and page images of over 500 individual Quaker works from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Exploring Ancient World Cultures Includes important sacred texts from the Near East, India, Egypt, China, Greece, Rome, Islam and Europe.
Foxe's Book of Martyrs "A history of the lives, sufferings and triumphant deaths of the early Christian and the Protestant martyrs." First published in 1563.
Guide to Early Church Documents Material relating to the early church, including canonical documents, creeds, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers and other historical texts relevant to church history.
Internet Islamic History Sourcebook (Fordham University) Texts on Islamic history from ancient times to the 20th century.
Internet Sacred Text Archive This site is a freely available non-profit archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, legends and folklore, and occult and esoteric topics. Texts are presented in English translation and, in some cases, in the original language.
Koran Browse or search this translation by M.H. Shakir.
Monastic Matrix Excellent site dedicated to the study of women's religious communities from 400 to 1600CE. Includes a separate section of primary sources, which can be browsed by title/author/community/region/century. Search function also available.
Nag Hamadi Library Collection of 13 ancient codices containing over 50 texts discovered in upper Egypt in 1945. The texts provide insight into early Christianity in general and Gnosticism in particular.
New Testament Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision, ca. 1750. Search/browse.
Primary Source Material in Religion and Politics Extensive list of primary source documents on issues relating to the interaction of religion and politics, categorized by era from ancient times to the present.
Sacred Texts Links to numerous websites of religious texts (Bahai / Bible/ Buddhist / Christian / Confucian / Hindu / Islamic / Jain / Jewish / Sikh / Taoist / Unification Church / Zoroastrian / Other).
Sunday School Books: Shaping the Values of Youth in Nineteenth Century America Presents 163 Sunday school books published in America between 1815-1865, documenting the culture of religious instruction of youth in America during the Antebellum era.
Vatican Archive Presents texts of the Bible (New American), Catechism of the Catholic Church, Code of Canon Law, II Vatican Council, and documents of the Jubilee 2000. Most texts are presented in multiple languages.
World Digital Library: Religion Collection of manuscripts, books and images. Use limiters in the left column to focus search on a specific geography, date range, or topic.

Jewish Studies

Cairo Genizah Collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts.
Center for Jewish History: Digital Collections Large collection of material from the Center for Jewish History and its partner organizations: the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Sephardi Federation, the Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Features more than 25000 digital objects, including rare books, children’s books, personal letters, official decrees, maps, memoirs, posters, photographs, scrapbooks, oral histories and more.
Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive: Jewish Americans (Washington State University Library) Primary documents that tell the story of ethnic groups along the Columbia River Basin (encompassing areas of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah and and British Columbia).
Foreign Relations, 1964-1968: Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967 (Foreign Relations of the United States) This volume of the official Foreign Relations of the United States documents U.S. policy immediately before, during, and after the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Historical Jewish Press This site contains a collection of Jewish newspapers published in various countries, languages, and time periods (1856-1996).
Holocaust Documents A good number of documents related to Nazi Germanyand the Holocaust, intended as a teacher's guide to using primary sources in the classroom.
Holocaust Resource Center Extensive collection of primary sources, including photographs; diaries and letters; documents; testimonies; maps; and images of artifacts and artwork. Part of the larger Yad Vashem website.
Internet Jewish History Sourcebook (Fordham University Library) Material documenting Jewish history from ancient times to the present day.
Internet Sacred Texts Archive: Judaism Full text of public-domain editions of the Talmud, Tanakh, Kabbalah, and miscelleous texts from other eras, including Flavius Josephus, Maimonides; other documents from the modern era.
Internetarchiv Judischer Periodika Browse or search more than 100 German-Jewish magazines and journals from the 18th to mid-20th centuries. Results, in German, are displayed as full page images.
Israel's Foreign Policy - Historical Documents This series of volumes from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs contains documents, many in English translation, relating to Israel's foreign relations from 1947-2004.
Jewish Womens Archive Primary sources may be browsed by type, time period, or topic.
Ketubbot Digital Project "The ketubbot digitization project aims to create a worldwide registry of ketubbot in public and private collections throughout the world. Based on the collection of the Jewish National and University Library with over 1600 items, the project contains ketubbot originating from dozens of different countries, and covering a time period of over 900 years. It is a major resource for research in Jewish history, law and art."
Maurice Ettinghausen Collection of Ruhleben Civilian Internment Camp Papers, 1914-1937 This unique collection, commonly referred to as “Ruhleben,” provides a fascinating insight into the daily life of prisoners at a German World War I camp.
Middle East, 1916-2001: a Documentary Record Government documents, transcripts of speeches by government leaders and UN resolutions. Arranged by year.
Nizkor Project A collection of projects focused on the Holocaust and its denial, including documents on the camps and war crimes trials, organizations, people and places,and research guides.
Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library Since 2009, we've made more than 11,000 titles available online in our Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library. The comprehensive collection includes works of fiction, memoirs, poetry, plays, short stories, science manuals, cookbooks, primers, and more, by the most renowned Yiddish authors and lesser-known writers alike. To date, those titles have been downloaded an astonishing 1.6 million times.
Voices of the Holocaust Translations into English of interviews of Holocaust survivors conducted in 1946. These primary sources are complemented by maps, biographies, and links to other resources.
Yiddish-Language Playscripts From the Hebraic Section of the Library of Congress; 77 unpublished manuscripts in the original Yiddish characters (not transliterated). Part of the American Memory collection of American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920.
Yizkor Books Online Nearly 700 memorial books of communities destroyed in the Holocaust, digitized from New York Public Library collection. Published 1950s-1970s, most are in Hebrew or Yiddish; some portions also in English or other European languages. Browse by community.