In order to progress in a scholarly career an individual must publish in scholarly journals. There are not enough journals to satisfy the demand of authors who need to publish. As a result, many scholars put their work in progress and unpublished material onto academia.edu. This is a good resource for Biblical Studies as there are many papers that can be downloaded on all manner of topics. The website seems to be closely tracked by Google in terms of rankings insofar as Google searches for a topic, say, ‘Jewish Monotheism’, will put papers on academia.edu near the top of the search list. The website then tracks the number of document views and downloads for a given essay. It is no surprise that papers on God and Christ are popular downloads compared to, say, papers on ‘The Plot of Luke-Acts’.
Another website that is useful for Biblical Studies is biblicalstudies.org.uk which has thousands of older conservative evangelical papers from journals. Its aim is “To make high quality theological material available throughout the world, thus providing Bible teachers and pastors with the resources they need to spread the Gospel in their countries. This is achieved by digitising and uploading in co-operation with authors and publishers, rare and out-of-print theology books and articles.”
Getting hold of papers/articles by scholars can be difficult without access to a university library. A good resource in this regard is the Tyndale Library in Cambridge (www.tyndalehouse.com). This is a specialist Biblical Studies library which has a purchase policy of maintaining a complete collection in this narrow field. The advantage offered to the distance learning student is that they offer a photocopy service by post for journal articles and book chapters from their collection.
The problem with biblical research for the independent bible student is getting to know the relevant material and getting hold of it for reading. The problem is simply that this costs money. Knowledge is a commodity and journal publishers and universities charge for access. An article from a journal of about 20 pages could cost about £20 (GBP) if you do not have access to a university and they take the journal. While some universities allow free access to their print collections, they do not allow free access to their online subscriptions. Increasingly, the latest research is available only through online subscription.
Many people use a computer concordance. Two good online choices are www.StepBible.org and www.tanakhml.org. This last website is a Hebrew verse analyser which has a particularly good layout and range of options for analysing Hebrew accents. The StepBible has an especially good interlinear layout for multiple English versions with Greek and Hebrew.
This is the important point. No matter what sources you may consult when doing Bible study, there is no substitute for doing the basic concordance work with the actual text. This is where the spiritual growth happens.
Analysis of the eschatology in 1 Thess 4:13-5:11 and 2 Thess 1:5-2:12