Finding commentaries in the catalog

You can find books about the Bible by doing a subject search on the uniform title (such as Bible ; Bible. O.T. ; Bible. O.T. Isaiah). You will often see subject terms with subdivisions tacked onto the end. Some common subdivisions are:

• --Commentaries.
• --Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• --Feminist criticism.

There is sometimes confusion about the first 2 this list. A work with "Commentaries" will usually cover a whole portion of the Bible. It will look at the text verse by verse or at least chapter by chapter. A work with "Criticism, interpretation, etc." will generally take a theme and discuss how it appears in throughout the Bible (or some part). Subdivisions can appear on any of the uniform titles discussed above.

You may also find subjects of the form: <topic> in the Bible. For example: Animals in the Bible.

To find older works, you can do a keyword subject search for: Bible <part> commentaries early works

this will call up works that were written before 1800.

For more information about Biblical resources, see the library page.

Finding a specific commentary.

If you know the exact title and spelling, you can search by that (ex. title phrase = Etz Hayim). You can also do a combination search with the author's last name with the smallest part of the Bible that you think is reasonable. (ex. author keyword = Rashi ; subject keyword = pentateuch). You can use the expert search screen to limit the results by language.

Finding commentaries online.

Responsa Project - Torah literature and Jewish texts | פרויקט השו"ת - ספרות תורנית

This database includes Torah, Talmud, codes, and commentaries in addition to works of responsa. Texts are available in Hebrew only. Basic searching is available to anyone, but advanced features are only available to subscribers.  The HUC community can access the full features through the Jewish Studies Portal