The Review of Biblical Literature (RBL) <http://www.bookreviews.org> is published by the Society of Biblical Literature. In addition to the online version, a print edition is published annually. The online version covers 1996 to the present, is available free of charge, and seems very up to date. Its primary focus is “on comprehensiveness of coverage and timeliness of posting” reviews. (Only the online version is reviewed here.)
The RBL reviews monographic sources that cover Biblical studies and related topics. Types of sources include books, reference works, dictionaries, Bible translations and multi‐author volumes. New books are sent to the RBL and assigned reviewers. To see if a book is scheduled for review, there is a “books received” database which lists when the book was received and if it has been assigned a reviewer. Non‐English books are also evaluated and some reviews are written in other languages, such as French and German.
The editor and the editorial board choose reviewers. Members of the Society of Biblical Literature can volunteer to be reviewers, but it is unclear whether non‐members can volunteer as well or whether there are specific requirements for being a reviewer. Unfortunately, very little is mentioned about the reviewers’ credentials, and thus it can be difficult to ascertain their authority and credibility. Each review does include the reviewer’s name and affiliation, and it would be very easy to contact the editor or members of the editorial board to check on credentials. Each review seems very thorough and well written.
As a whole, the RBL Web site is appealing and easy to use. It has a simple layout and minimal graphics. On the main page, there is a border on the left‐hand side of the screen containing links to the site’s main features; the center area of the screen contains a brief overview of the RBL. Navigation is quite simple because of the limited number of things to do. In addition to a few supplementary features, there are only three options on this site: look at books received, search for reviews or browse reviews. These three options are linked on the left‐hand border.
Browsing for reviews is relatively straightforward. The browse feature is set up like a search form with various ways to adjust the amount of reviews to browse. One option is to limit to a specific year of publication (1996 through the present) or view all years. A second option is to browse only specific subjects, which are listed alphabetically, such as Apocrypha, Hebrews, and Job. Scrolling down this list of subjects provides a good glimpse at the types of topics covered by the RBL. Of note, books are indexed, when possible, by Biblical books; otherwise, they are indexed by subject. Finally, there is an option to sort the reviews by author or by title and to determine how many reviews are displayed.
Searching for reviews works in a similar manner to browsing. There is a search form with various options. It is possible to search by title, author, subject, reviewer or keyword. As with the browse feature, results can be limited by year of publication and sorted by title or author. The search form does note that Boolean logic is supported and that an asterisk can be used for truncation. However, no examples are provided, so it would be difficult for an average user to know how to use these features. The form also notes that common words are removed from search strings to make searches faster. There is a stopword list, which is helpful for determining words that are considered common.
In general, the search feature works well. If the title, author or reviewer name is known, it is easy to do a simple search given that information. Keyword searches seem easy as well; simply type in any words. The search engine seems to search in all the fields and in the text of the review. However, things get muddled when trying to do a subject search because there is no list of subjects provided. One option is to scan the list of subjects listed in the browse feature and then use those to do a subject search. The other option is to type in a topic and see if that word is a subject term. At this stage, it would be very helpful to have some documentation on how to search for reviews properly. Even providing some example searches would be useful. However, there is no documentation available.
Despite the lack of documentation, the Review of Biblical Literature is a valuable and useful tool. There are no other resources that match its content and provide it freely on the Web. It is a very good way to get reviews on new titles in the fields of Biblical literature and Biblical studies. It would be particularly useful for students in a religious studies class or program. I would recommend this resource for all academic libraries and even public libraries.
