Q. How can I research a specific passage of scripture, such as a chapter or verse of a book of the Bible?

To research a specific Bible book, chapter, verse, or passage, start with Primo library search and then try ATLA and other religion databases as well as Google Scholar.

1. In Primo, you can search for commentaries on the whole book of the Bible and then just find the section on your passage in the commentary. See this sample search on Proverbs or on 1st John. Click online sources on the left if you are in a hurry and don't want to see any print sources you'd need to request (However, requests, especially for PDFs/digitial chapters, can come quite fast).

2. In Primo, you can also try the specfic chapter or verses. Here are sources based on searching for the specific verses. Also try searching your specific passage in quotation marks and the "Articles" or "Book Chapters" filter, like this.

3. Definitely use ATLA database and their amazing scripture research tool in the left menu. First, here are all the religion databases, a good page to save. In ATLA, you can search by scripture reference using the scripture tool, like this example search.  That is a search for two specific verses--58 articles in English came up. You can add more filters also, or add a key word to the search related to the topic you are looking for.

4. Look up your scripture passage and/or some key words in Google Scholar. If you see interesting sources there, copy and paste the title into Primo to access it. If you link Google Scholar to Regent, you can also get links right into our article databases.