Bible Study and Research: Books

WorldCat searches::

• Books, etc. in our library (displayed first)
• Consortium libraries: Bethel, United, and St. Paul seminaries (displayed second)
• Local and regional academic and public libraries
• Libraries nationwide and Canada
• Selected article databases
• Other online resources

If you are seeking to explore a topic about the Bible at a deeper level, then books pertaining to biblical passages are an excellent resource. To find these books, try one or more of these strategies:

1. Use the Advanced Search box in the Luther Library Catalog. 

A. In the first box, change the dropdown to SUBJECT and type the book of the Bible you are interested in (ex. "bible galatians"). If you want only results focused on a specific chapter, you can include that in Roman numerals (ex. "Bible Galatians V").

B. Add the AND box, change the dropdown to "keyword", and enter the topic of interest. (For more focused results, you can instead change the dropdown to "subject" and enter the Library of Congress subject heading for your topic.)

C. The above search strategies will include some commentaries. If you want to remove these, add a third row, change the operator to NOT, change the dropdown to "keyword" and type "commentar*" in the box.

2. Conduct a Browse (as in #1 above), and identify a book of interest. Then use the subject heading links listed in that record to conduct a search with a similar scope.

Keep in mind that many books may contain a discussion of your Bible passage even if they are not totally devoted to your Bible passage. It's most often useful to do one focused search and then a broader search to pick up additional materials.

Choose the content you wish to search from the tabs on the search box.

Enter your search keywords in any order

WorldCat will return records that contain all of your search terms wherever they appear in a record

WorldCat uses a relevancy ranking in the display of your search results

• Search terms appearing in the title, author, or subject fields are ranked highest
• The proximity of terms to each other.  The closer together the terms, the higher the relevancy
• The number of libraries that own the title.  The greater the number increases the relevancy
• All else equal, more recently published material will display before older

If you are searching for a specific title or phrase, enclose the title/phrase in quotation marks to search for just that sequence of words

See also A Guide to WorldCat for more searching tips and suggestions.