Scripture searching

Finding materials about a certain Bible text or passage in FirstSearch is radically different from the process you used in our older version of the ATLA-RDB. We will try to explain here, as clearly as possible, how you can make this system work for you.

Scripture Citation

Use this category if you want to encompass an entire book of the Bible.

This search will retrieve articles and essays dealing with the use of the word vine in the Gospel of John. (You may decide to use a truncation symbol, like vine? to search for the words vine and vineyard in one go.)

Try this technique with some other examples. For instance :

When there is more than one book with the same name, use a comma and then an ordinal number, as in the illustration above :

corinthians, 1st

peter, 2nd

Please note that you should not try to use more than one Scripture Citation category at a time. For instance, you will not be able to enter Luke as a Scripture Citation and Acts as a second one, then a Keyword or Subject term. Because of the Boolean interactions, this will not yield the result you are expecting. We suggest that you do two separate searches if you want to specify two different books of the Bible.

Scripture Citation Phrase

Use this category to search for a specific passage or text in the Bible. Spell out the entire name of the book (no abbreviations), then chapter or chapter and verse, using a space instead of a : or colon. Then, hit the Browse button.

You receive a Browse box, showing you which passages are indexed by the database. Note that the pericope starting with Genesis 12:1 has been divided in many different ways by various authors. Some consider Gen 12:1-3 to be a unit, while others use Gen 12:1-9, Gen 12:1-14, and so on. You may select these individually, or use a truncation symbol to select an open-ended set of passages :

genesis 12 1-*

and then, hit Search. You may also enter genesis 12 as a Scripture Citation Phrase with no verses specified, or click on the line for genesis 12 in the Browse box. You will receive an even larger set of results, though the passage discussed will not necessarily begin with the first verse.

Notice that the computer orders verse 14 or 15 ahead of verse 2. Computers tend to order numbers by digit, regardless of their meaning.

Use the Prev or Next buttons to move forward or back through the Browse list. A popular passage may appear in many different forms.

Some other examples of Scripture Citation Phrase :