Website Review
The Internet Sacred Texts
Archive
Reviewed by Bonnie R.
Schutzman
© 2006,
Bonnie R. Schutzman
www.sacred-texts.com
The
Internet Sacred Texts Archive (ISTA) bills itself as "a quiet place in
cyberspace devoted to religious tolerance and scholarship." Its mission is
to provide electronic texts of books of religion, mythology, legends, and
folklore as well as occult and esoteric topics. John B. Hare started the
site in 1999. He and a team of volunteers have scanned, redacted, and added
more than 300 texts since then.
You
will find an impressive listing of available e-texts in the ISTA. The
complete listing of works at the site runs 50 printed pages and ranges from
the Zetetic (flat-earth) astronomy of Samuel Rowbotham to the King James
Bible, from the first thousand lines of the human chromosome to multiple
versions of the Qur'an, from reproductions of some of the Ardeche cave
paintings to The Internet Book of Shadows. It even includes some classics
of fantasy writing, such as Spenser's The Faery Queen and Eddison's
The Worm Ourobouros. Notable recent additions include The Lusiad,
a Portuguese epic poem about the voyage of Vasco de Gama; Lewis Spence's
Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine; and a 1913 translation of Lucian's
De Dea Syria (The Syrian Goddess), a text that played a seminal role
in the development of modern neopaganism.
The
site is organized by topic with some books referenced from more than one
section. The listings include a certain amount of introductory material
that highlights major scholarly issues and orients the reader to both the
original text and its more modern uses. But no attempt is made to provide
full scholarly critiques.
The
texts display as HTML. A few are available in zip files for download. Most
of the site is also available on CD/ROM (USD49.95, with free worldwide
shipping when ordered directly from the website). The CD might be a good
option if you make heavy use of the texts and don't have a high-speed
internet connection.
Many
of the texts are scarce and hard to find in print form, such as the
extensive collections of African, Pacific, and Native American legends and
folk tales, translations of the Vedas, the Shinto texts, and the Lotus
Sutra. Primary texts are included in their original language as well as in
translation. Many secondary texts are also available. If you want to build
a world that isn't just another medieval European or Celtic clone, you'll
find plenty of material here.
Most
of the texts are in English, though primary source texts such as the Qur'an
and the Bible are available in the original languages. All the texts at the
site are either in the public domain or made available with the consent of
the copyright holders. This means that you are free to use the texts as you
see fit, but it also means that few of them are recent. You may need to
supplement these sources with more current research and scholarship.
Another shortcoming of the site is its lack of texts from newer religions,
such as Scientology or the Unification Church, which don't have any public
domain books about them (and jealously guard their copyrights).
The
site is not affiliated with any religious organization, academic
institution, or corporate entity. It is funded primarily through sales of
the CD/ROM.
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