Virtually Branching Out: The Bible on the Web

It would take a thick book to mention every Jewish, Christian or Bible-related resource available on the Internet. But this quick list of key Web resources should help you get started exploring Christian and Jewish resources online.

The World Wide Web primarily lets you browse, but you can also save or print the information at a Web site, depending on your “browser” program, and many Web pages offer links to FTP archives where you can retrieve free documents and free or pay-if-you-like-it (“shareware”) programs.

Part of the magic of the Web is that sites can be linked so that one click of a mouse will transparently jump a user to another Web page, whether that page is in Finland or Australia. These key Christian Web sites list a host of useful resources:

• CrossSearch (http://www.crosssearch.com) offers links to Bible translations online.

• Christian Community Internet Guide (http://www.webroute.com) aims to be a “comprehensive launching pad” to Christian sites all over the Web. Regional guides and 70 categories of links help make sense of the vast array of resources.

• Christian Macintosh User Group (http://www.cmug-la.org) includes an index of Bible software and theological works on the Net.

• Catholic Source Documents (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/People/spok/catholic.html) purports to be the most comprehensive index to Web-accessible documents and archives of interest to Catholics, with links to Vatican and patristic documents and the writings of authors like John Newman and Thomas Merton.