Alumni Access - Wright Library
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Alumni Access

One of the most extensive selections of licensed resources available to alumni from any theological institution

Alumni Research Databases

Welcome, Princeton Seminary Alumni!

We are pleased to support your lifelong learning with access to one of the widest and most extensive selections of licensed resources available to alumni from any theological institution.

Alumni access includes borrowing privileges.

In addition, we invite you to browse this list of free resources, including Theological Commons and Princeton Theological Seminary Media Archive.

Alumni Resources Overview

Princeton Theological Seminary provides access to one of the widest selections of resources available to alumni from any theological institution, from biblical commentaries, original language resources and reference works to e-books and articles.

Alumni Borrowing Privileges

Wright Library is pleased to offer Princeton Seminary graduates free borrowing privileges.*

Request an alumni identification card from the Seminary Department of Public Safety (login required**) to:

  • Borrow up to 50 books at a time
  • Keep for a 28-day loan period
  • Renew checkouts up to five times (in person, online or via text)

Renew your borrowing privileges yearly.

*For on-site borrowing of physical material only; material will not be mailed to alumni.

**For assistance with your Princeton Seminary account, contact the IT Help Desk (help.desk@ptsem.edu).

Alumni Collection

Explore a growing collection of thousands of books by Princeton Seminary alumni.

Alumni Research Databases

Request access

Email: help.desk@ptsem.edu

Phone: (609) 497-7812

Help

Need help accessing a resource? Contact the Discovery and Web Services Librarian

Need help using library resources? Ask a Reference Librarian

Details

  • Biblical Commentaries: Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries, Eerdmans Bible Commentaries (NT and OT), International Critical Commentary
  • eBooks: ACLS Humanities EBook, Bloomsbury Academic eBooks, Christian Doctrines Archive 1988-2013, Christology Archive 1982-2011, Mohr Siebeck (select books and journals), Pauline Studies Archive, Project MUSE
  • Journal Articles: Academic Search (Alumni Edition), AtlaSerials PLUS, Religion Collection (Atlas PLUS for Alum), Biblical Archaeology Review, JSTOR, Religion Database (formerly ProQuest Religion), Sage Journals
  • Reference Works: Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, Bloomsbury Religion in North America, Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, Brill Dictionary of Religion, Brill’s Encyclopedia of Global Pentecostalism Online, Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion & Culture, Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Encyclopaedia of Islam THREE, Encyclopaedia of Judaism, Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an, Encyclopedia of Christianity Online, Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture Online, Enzyklopädie jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament Online, Library of Catholic Thought, New Pauly Online, Der Neue Pauly Online, Oxford Bibliographies Online: Biblical Studies, Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford Handbooks in Religion, Oxford Reference, Oxford Scholarship Online (Philosophy and Religion), Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Religion Past and Present, T&T Clark Jesus Library, T&T Clark Theology Library, Textual History of the Bible Online, Theology & Religion Online, World Christian Database, World Christian Encyclopedia Online, World Religion Database
  • Primary Source Collections: Church Missionary Society Periodicals, Digital Karl Barth Library, Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts, Digital Library of the Catholic Reformation, Luther’s Works (The Works of Martin Luther), Tillich Online (TILLO), Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Volume 1: Christianity, Volume 2: Islam, Volume 3: Judaism, Twentieth Century Religious Thought Library, Vols. 1-3

The selection of resources available to alumni is extensive, but it does not include everything available to current students and faculty.

Remember to contact the IT Help Desk (help.desk@ptsem.edu or 609.497.7812) to request alum database access. Then, the instructions below will help get you started.

Click on one of the database links (Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries, for example). You’ll log in to OpenAthens by selecting the first option (sign in with your seminary email). Be sure to use @ptsem.edu not alum.ptsem.edu.

Some of the links (from Summon, the library catalog, online journals portal and so on) may work for you, but it is hard to predict which ones will and won’t.

It’s sometimes the case that there are multiple results for the same item in Summon. It could be that alumni don’t have access from one source but do from another.

For e-journals or e-journal articles, if the link from Summon does not work for you, copy the name of the journal and look it up in the Online Journals Portal, https://bp9sf7rp2h.search.serialssolutions.com/. (Note that some links from Summon search results will go directly to the publication’s entry in the Online Journals Portal.) There, you’ll be able to see which databases have full text and for what dates of coverage. If you know the databases available to alumni (or simply have the Alumni Access page open for reference), you’ll know which links from the Online Journals Portal will work for you.

You might also find these browser extensions helpful, once you’ve established access: LibKey Nomad and Lean Library (Note: There will be instances in which an extension says Wright Library provides access but you find that you are not able to access the item. This is because the extensions operate based on what is available to current students. There is some overlap, which is why we recommend it to alumni as well as current students; however, as mentioned above, alumni do not have access to everything.)

Biblical Commentaries

Provides full text journal coverage for nearly all academic areas of study – including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.

54 authoritative commentaries on every book of the New Testament from leading international scholars and world-class Bible authorities

79 authoritative commentaries on each book in the Old Testament by leading international scholars and world-class Bible authorities, including Job 1–21 : Interpretation and Commentary (C. L. Seow) and Journeying With God : A Commentary on the Book of Numbers (Katharine Doob Sakenfeld)

A curated selection of 59 titles from the series’ long history, including both long-unavailable titles and newly-published research, that brings together linguistic and textual, archaeological, historical, literary and theological aids to exegesis.

Note: Click the button and then use the navigation on the Bloomsbury Collections website to locate the International Critical Commentary. With the current capabilities of the Bloomsbury Collections platform, there is no way to link directly to a specific collection via OpenAthens®.

eBooks

Searchable collection of 4,000+ books in the Humanities, recommended and reviewed by scholars. A title list is also available.

E-books published by Bloomsbury Academic; includes the International Critical Commentary, Christian Doctrines Archive (1988-2013), Christology Archive (1982-2014) and Pauline Studies Archive, as well as Biblical Studies, Philosophy, Religious Studies and Theology e-books.

54 titles, including guides to The Trinity, works from the Ecclesiological Investigations series, and several titles on systematic theology, as well as John Calvin’s Ecclesiology, The Identity of Anglicanism, and Salvation in Celluloid: Theology, Imagination and Film.

Note: Click the button and then use the navigation on the Bloomsbury Collections website to locate the Christian Doctrines Archive 1988-2013. With the current capabilities of the Bloomsbury Collections platform, there is no way to link directly to a specific collection via OpenAthens®.

66 theological Bloomsbury T&T Clark books, grouped around the theme of Christology, or the focus on the nature and person of Jesus Christ as recorded in the canonical Gospels and the epistles of the New Testament. Includes works by Thomas F. Torrance, monographs on the theology of Karl Barth, and key introductory texts such as J.L. Houlden’s Jesus: The Complete Guide and Alan J. Spence’s Christology: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Note: Click the button and then use the navigation on the Bloomsbury Collections website to locate the Christology Archive 1982-2011. With the current capabilities of the Bloomsbury Collections platform, there is no way to link directly to a specific collection via OpenAthens®.

Wright Library subscribes (provides access) to a selection of titles on the Mohr Siebeck publishing platform, including titles within Mohr Siebeck Zeitschriften Online, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (WUNT I), and Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe (WUNT II).

Tip: Use the advanced search and the “Accessible Content” and “Open Access” checkboxes when searching.

Alongside titles such as Paul: A Guide for the Perplexed and A Feminist Companion to the Deutero-Pauline Epistles, this collection includes The Pauline Writings, a series exploring New Testament study from historical, social-scientific, literary, theological, cultural and contextual perspectives.

Note: Click the link and then use the navigation on the Bloomsbury Collections website to locate the Bloomsbury Academic: Pauline Studies Archive 1984-2012. With the current capabilities of the Bloomsbury Collections platform, there is no way to link directly to a specific collection via OpenAthens®.

Access e-books and e-book series, including Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible Series Collection, as well as several e-journals on the Project MUSE platform.

Journal Articles

Provides full text journal coverage for nearly all academic areas of study – including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.

Contains more than 450 journals in many areas of religion and theology, with all of the titles in Atla’s original full-text product, AtlaSerials® (ATLAS®), plus more than 120 additional full-text titles. This database is produced by Atla.

NOTE: While links on The Text This Week website to articles in this database are in the process of being updated, some searches may not work as planned. For now, you must log in to AtlaSerials PLUS, Religion Collection (by clicking the link below this note) and type (or copy/paste) into the search box on the EBSCOhost platform, the title of the article you found on The Text This Week.

Archaeology and the latest in Bible scholarship in the Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) magazine. Explore the current issue along with web-only features and Scholar’s Study, where scholarly debates from the pages of BAR continue online.

Visit the Society’s website for more information: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/

Full text archive of core journals in select disciplines. Includes the JSTOR Religion and Theology Collection. Note: Recent issues (last 3-5 years) are often not available.

Wide range of primarily full-text periodicals and other sources for diverse religious and spiritual studies, covering formal theological studies and commentary on topics of general interest from the perspectives of many worldwide religions, including but not limited to Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism.

Alumni have access to Wright Library’s Sage journal subscriptions, including Theology Today.

Reference Works

Six-volume interdisciplinary dictionary with more than 6,000 entries, 7,000,000 words, and nearly 1,000 contributors, endpaper maps of the Near Eastern world keyed to text for quick location of archaeological and biblical sites, articles on pseudepigraphic and apocryphal texts, Nag Hammadi tractates, and individual Dead Sea Scrolls, including the most recently published sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls as well as articles illustrating the literary artistry of the biblical text.

Contains, e-books, images and digitally exclusive, peer reviewed articles organized around key themes, including African American religion; Islam in North America; Religion and the Environment in North America; Secularity and Non-Religion in North America; Religion, Science and Technology in North America; and more.

English translation of Franco Montanari’s Vocabolario della Lingua Greca. 140,000 headwords taken from the literature, papyri, inscriptions and other sources of the archaic period up to the 6th Century CE, and occasionally beyond.

A multi-media reference source on the many and various forms of religious commitment. Addresses religion as an element of daily life and public discourse.

Comprehensive overview of worldwide Pentecostalism from a range of disciplinary perspectives. All articles are fully text searchable and cross-referenced, with bibliographic information on scholarly work and recommendations for further reading.

Collections of essays for an inter-disciplinary audience, intended as reference works addressing topics and figures ranging from Plato through Kant to Habermas, and philosophical movements such as the Scottish Enlightenment and German Idealism.

Contains information on the hymns of many countries and languages, historical and contemporary. “..[T]he public launch of the ‘impossible task’ – the replacement for the Dictionary of Hymnology produced by John Julian in 1892, with a supplement in 1907.”

Academic articles on the named gods, angels, and demons in the books of the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Apocrypha, as well as the New Testament and patristic literature.

Reference tool on the Islamic World. Includes comprehensive coverage of Islam in the 20th century and of Muslim minorities around the world.

200+ entries describe the way of life, history, art, theology, philosophy, and the practices and beliefs of the Jewish people with an emphasis on the classical literature of Judaism and its history, along with contemporary issues in American Judaism.

An encyclopaedic dictionary of qur’anic terms, concepts, personalities, place names, cultural history and exegesis extended with essays on the most important themes and subjects within qur’anic studies. First comprehensive, multivolume reference work on the Qur’an in a Western language.

Describes modern-day Christian beliefs and communities in the context of 2000 years of apostolic tradition and Christian history. Based on the third, revised edition of the critically acclaimed German work, Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon.

From Europe to America to the Middle East, North Africa and other non-European Jewish settlement areas the encyclopedia covers the recent history of the Jews from 1750 until the 1950s.

Von Europa über Amerika bis zum Vorderen Orient, Nordafrika und anderen außereuropäischen jüdischen Siedlungsräumen erschließt die Enzyklopädie die neuere Geschichte der Juden von 1750 bis 1950. Die Enzyklopädie Jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur Online basiert auf der gedruckten Ausgabe Enzyklopädie Jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur von J.B. Metzler Verlag (2011–2015), herausgegeben von Dan Diner.

The complete vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), extended with variants from the Oriental and Samaritan textual traditions, the Ben Sira fragments, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Third edition of Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner’s Hebrew dictionary.

Features

  • Full text search in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, English, transliterations and Scripture references
  • Conjugated verb forms immediately found in the context of their consonantal roots
  • Easily compare Hebrew and Aramaic lexemes
  • Cross references hypertexted
  • Powerful search features

Introduction to Catholic biblical interpretation, key figures in the history of Catholic thought and major doctrines, themes, and events. A key element of the Library is the new fully revised third edition of the Jerome Biblical Commentary featuring a preface by Pope Francis. Includes biblical commentaries linked to a digital edition of the New American Bible, topical articles on themes such as social justice, ethics, the bible in the life of the Church and the bible in diverse contexts.

Modern reference work for the ancient world covering 2,000+ years of history, ranging from the second millennium BC to early medieval Europe. The English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, published by Verlag J.B. Metzler since 1996. Special emphasis is given to the interaction between Greco-Roman culture on the one hand, and Semitic, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavonic culture, and ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on the other hand.

Oxford University Press retired the Oxford Biblical Studies Online (OBSO) platform in July 2022. Many of the titles were migrated to 3 other platforms. Here are the title lists:

  1. Via Oxford Handbooks Online (link below), The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies;
  2. Via Oxford Scholarship Online (link below): The Apocryphal New Testament; and How to Read the Bible; and
  3. Via Oxford Reference (link below): A Dictionary of the Bible, 2nd editionEncyclopedia of the Dead Sea ScrollsThe Oxford Bible Atlas, Fourth EditionThe Oxford Bible CommentaryThe Oxford Companion to the BibleThe Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient EgyptThe Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in Near EastThe Oxford Encyclopedias of the BibleThe Oxford History of the Biblical WorldThe Oxford Illustrated History of the BibleThe Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical InterpretationThe Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and ArchaeologyThe Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and EthicsThe Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Gender StudiesThe Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and LawThe Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the ArtsThe Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Theology; and The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible.

Carefully considered bibliographical resource recommendations on essential topics in the study of the Bible broadly conceived. Helpful for developing an informed view of the topic of concern, OBO provides a clearly outlined path for academic engagement.

Traces the usage of over half a million words through 3 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books. Video guides to the OED are also available.

Specially-commissioned essays by the world’s leading scholars with extensive referencing to further reading, the handbooks offer both thorough introductions to topics in the discipline, and a useful reference resource for scholars and advanced students.

Follow the link below and then click on Religion in the Browse list to view the Oxford Handbooks in Religion titles.

Hundreds of language and subject reference works from one of the world’s biggest reference publishers into a single cross-searchable resource.

Use the options under the Availability filter on Oxford Academic to see the titles available from these Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO) collections. OSO titles were migrated to the Oxford Academic platform in July 2022.

Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 4 Online is the online version of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart 4 (RGG4) (Mohr Siebeck, 1998-2007).

Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.

Core resources for studying the life of Jesus and his impact in history and culture. Includes new reference work on the Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries, exclusive audio interviews on important topics and major publications, as well as commissioned topical articles written by leading academics. Curated by editor-in-chief Chris Keith (St. Mary’s University Twickenham) and other experts.

Includes primary texts and exclusively commissioned introductory articles written by key academics on theologians and theological doctrines as well as Church Dogmatics by Karl Barth. Search and browse recently added titles or browse by topic.

Covers the textual history, textual character, translation techniques, manuscripts, and the importance of each textual witness for each book of the Hebrew Bible, including its deutero-canonical scriptures. Includes articles on the history of research, the editorial histories of the Hebrew Bible, as well as other aspects of text-critical research and its auxiliary fields, such as papyrology, codicology, and linguistics.

On this platform, the library provides access to the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries, T&T Clark Theology Library, the T&T Clark Jesus Library, the Library of Catholic Thought (T&T Clark Catholic Library) and Bloomsbury Religion in North America

Provides comprehensive statistical information on world religions, Christian denominations, and people groups.

This is the online version of the 3rd edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia, which documents the changing status of World Christianity over the past 120 years from historical and social scientific perspectives.

Detailed statistics including censuses and surveys on religious affiliation for every country of the world. It offers best estimates at multiple dates for each of the world’s religions, 1900-2050.

Primary Source Collections

Searchable and browsable publications (1804-2009) from the Church Missionary Society, the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society and the latterly integrated South American Missionary Society documenting missionary work from the 19th-21st century. Includes articles, illustrations, photos relating to cultures around the world.

Includes the English translation of Barth’s magnum opus, The Church Dogmatics, in its entirety along with the original German version, Die kirchliche Dogmatik, and the first 45 volumes of Barth’s Gesamtausgabe, containing hundreds of letters, sermons, lectures, conversations, and academic writings. These volumes are supplemented by seven additional German works that have not yet been published as part of the Gesamtausgabe and English translations of thirteen important texts by Barth. Offered by Alexander Street in association with the Theologischer Verlag Zürich (TVZ) and Princeton Theological Seminary.

An extensive range of works from the Reformation and post-Reformation eras. Includes sermons and lectures given by theologians in leaders in the Protestant Reformation.

Documents, including papal and synodal decrees, catechisms and inquisitorial manuals, biblical commentaries, theological treatises, liturgical writings, saints’ lives and devotional works.

Digital version of the 55-volume set of Luther’s Works, a monumental translation project by Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House which was published in print in 1957. Useful for church historians, theologians, Luther scholars, and Christians in general. (Find Luther’s Works (Volumes 1-55) in the library’s print reference collection at REF BR330 .E5 1955.)

The first bilingual database of the entire work of German-American theologian Paul Tillich (1886–1965) documents the Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works) and the Ergänzungs- und Nachlassbände (Supplementary and Literary Estate Volumes).

Twentieth Century Religious Thought is a multivolume, cross-searchable online collection that brings together the seminal works and archival materials related to worldwide religious thinkers, from the early 1900s until the turn of the 21st century. Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Volume 1: Christianity includes the complete 17-volume German edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke (DBW) and 16 volumes of the English edition of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works Series (DBWE); an international selection of English-language editions of key authors such as Hans Urs von Baltasar, Rudolf Bultmann, James Cone, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Adolf von Harnack, Henri de Lubac, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Dorothee Sölle, and Ernst Troeltsch; and a selection of the papers of Reinhold Niebuhr.

Twentieth Century Religious Thought is a multivolume, cross-searchable online collection that brings together the seminal works and archival materials related to worldwide religious thinkers, from the early 1900s until the turn of the 21st century. Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Volume 2: Islam focuses on modern Islamic theology and tradition and details Islam’s evolution from the late 19th century by examining printed works and rare documents by Muslim writers, both non-Western and Western voices. It includes an international selection of English-language editions of key thinkers such as Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm, Khaled Abou el Fadl, Fethullah Gülen, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Said Nursî, Tariq Ramadan, Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, and Amina Wadud; writings in Arabic by Muhammad Abduh and in French by Abdou Filali-Ansary, and a selection of more contextual monographs. Future releases will introduce more works by significant thinkers and archival content.

Twentieth Century Religious Thought is a multivolume, cross-searchable online collection that brings together the seminal works and archival materials related to worldwide religious thinkers, from the early 1900s until the turn of the 21st century. Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Volume 3: Judaism includes an international selection of English-language editions of key thinkers such as Eugene Borowitz, Elliott Dorff, Emil L. Fackenheim, Blu Greenberg, David Hartman, Mordecai Kaplan, Adolf Neubauer, and Joseph B. Soloveitchik; writings in German and Hebrew from the Markus Brann collection, and a selection of contextual monographs and reference works.

Search all three volumes (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) at once.