Accessing the Ancient World: The Bible, Antiquity, and the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW, W3, or the Web) has become an increasingly visible and active part of the Internet in the past two years. The number of colleges, universities, seminaries, museums, journals, organizations, and individuals who have Websites has grown at an amazing rate. This article is an attempt to break the barrier for beginners who may feel it is a waste of time or see no value in it for teaching or research. Issues addressed here include: introducing the Web and why biblical scholars should care, levels of access, typical problems in using the Web, a classified list of approximately 200 of the most useful Websites I have located (including their URLs or addresses), suggestions for using the Web in teaching biblical studies and the ancient world, and a glossary of terms.