Els estudis bíblics i hebraics en l'època d'Internet: Eines informàtiques

Abstract

Sociologists and historians concur in saying that the computer science and the Internet have ushered us in a new world, a new age in the history of the human society, namely, the digital era, the effects of which are bound to be deeper than those caused by the invention of printing in the 15th century or by the Industrial Revolution in the 19th. In the early nineties the proliferation of personal computers (PC) made it possible for the new communications network known under the name of Internet to spread world-wide and to become the World Wide Web in which we are nolens volens caught. The linkage of personal computers and communications networks is transforming and certainly speeding up the scientific research in all its fields. In 1996 there were around thirty million users surfing the Internet. In the course of the present decade that number is expected to increase up to a thousand million. The Internet is the new intricate dimension in which all the spheres of our human activities will be compelled to walk. As far as Biblical and Jewish studies are concerned, there is no doubt that the Internet furnishes us with the possibility of acquiring (mostly free of charge) wide information about all kind of subjects, particularly bibliographical data; and it makes the communication between researchers easier and faster, not to mention the making up and transmission of texts, including Hebrew documents. Since it is wise to provide ourselves with the tools or rather with the vehicles that should enable us to go deeper into the new roads, we are offering in this paper the addresses (URL) of about four hundred web sites related to our field of activity. It is just a guide, which we have for this purpose divided into thirty-two sections under the following headings: 1. Limited area search engines; 2. Portals and other general web sites on Judaism; 3. Portals and other general web sites on Bible and ancient Near East; 4. Catalan associations for the study of the Bible and Jud