Jump to content

Internet Sacred Text Archive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
Internet Sacred Text Archive
Type of site
Digital library
OwnerJohn Bruno Hare
Created byJohn Bruno Hare
URLwww.sacred-texts.com
CommercialNo
RegistrationNone
LaunchedMarch 9, 1999

The Internet Sacred Text Archive (ISTA) is a Santa Cruz, California-based website dedicated to the preservation of electronic public domain religious texts.

History

The website was first opened to the public on March 9, 1999, by John Bruno Hare (1955–2010), in Santa Cruz, California.[1][2] Hare started building the website from his home in the late 1990s, as "an intellectual challenge". At the time, he was working as a software engineer with a dot-com company, and started by scanning over 1,000 public domain books on religion, folklore and mythology.[3][4] The reason for its founding was the promotion of religious tolerance through knowledge.[5][6] Its texts are organized into 77 different categories. The maintenance costs for the website — which as of 2006 received anywhere from five hundred thousand to two million visits a day — are funded by sales of the website on DVD, CD-ROM, or USB flash drive for monetary donations.[1]

Contents

The Internet Sacred Text Archive lists three general links, World Religions, Traditions, and Mysteries. The first leads to the texts of the Abrahamic religions, as well as secondary sources describing them. The second leads to indigenous religions, including transcriptions of oral myths. The third leads to Nostradamus's writings, descriptions of Atlantis, and pagan texts. The main page has a site map that is organized alphabetically.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Hare, John Bruno. "About Sacred-Texts". Internet Sacred Text Archive. OCLC 939385628. Archived from the original on 2006-11-08.
  2. ^ Sabharwal, Arjun (2022-04-04). "Digital Scriptures, Material Religion, and the Digital Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Framework for Curating Digitized Sacred Texts Online". In Clark, Emily Suzanne; Mc Bride Lindsey, Rachel (eds.). Digital Humanities and Material Religion: An Introduction. Introductions to Digital Humanities – Religion. Vol. 6. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 71–72. doi:10.1515/9783110608755-004. ISBN 978-3-11-060875-5. OCLC 1285775408.
  3. ^ Napoli, Lisa (November 25, 2004). "Sacred Pages". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on December 10, 2008.
  4. ^ Turner, Ramona (2009-08-11). "Online Religious Book Publisher Seeks Growth". Santa Cruz Sentinel. ISSN 1531-0817. Archived from the original on 2016-06-23.
  5. ^ Kent-Drury, Roxanne M. (2005). "Religion and Folklore". Using Internet Primary Sources to Teach Critical Thinking Skills in World Literature. Libraries Unlimited Professional Guides in School Librarianship. Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited. pp. 41–43. ISBN 978-0-313-32009-5. OCLC 717114746.
  6. ^ Jacobs, Mary A. (2003-05-29). "On the Web". The Record. p. 6. Archived from the original on 2022-06-21 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ Roberts, Joni; Drost, Carol; Valentine, Barbara; Case, Susan B.; Jobnson, Wendell (February 2002). "Internet Reviews". College & Research Libraries News. 63 (2): 132–133. doi:10.5860/crln.63.2.132. ISSN 0099-0086. Archived from the original on 2021-06-20.