This ongoing bibliographical project was launched in the year 2000 on behalf of the Center for the Study of Christianity of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Its immediate purpose is to fill the evident gap in the set of bibliographical resources and provide a convenient and easily accessible tool for the worldwide scholarly community. The ultimate goal of the project, of which the results of only the first stage are now being made available, is to assemble as much bibliographical material as possible so that eventually a comprehensive bibliography on Christianity in Palestine will become available.

Accordingly, our project is meant to be as all-encompassing as possible and to cover materials from all relevant disciplines. For Example, with regard to the Byzantine and Crusader periods, we decided to include not only works dealing explicitly with Christian matters but also those, especially from the field of archaeology, where at first glance there might not seem to be anything specifically related to Christianity. On the other hand, several limitations were deliberately imposed. For instance, the whole subject of Christian history during the New Testament period, including the historical Jesus, was left outside the scope of our bibliography, since there are already quite enough bibliographical resources in this field. Furthermore, when it comes to such figures as Origen or Jerome, who spent only part of their lives in Palestine, we attempt to include only those materials relevant to the time of their being there, although this is not always an easy task. In addition, in the case of such prolific authors as Eusebius, we decided at this stage not to include his writings that deal with purely theological or literary matters, in order not to overload the bibliography.

For the sake of convenience the bibliography has been divided into the following categories, following a chronological sequence:

~ Roman Palestine (I-IV ce)

~ Byzantine Palestine (IV-VII ce)

~ Islamic Period (VII-XI ce)

~ Crusaders (XI-XIII ce)

~ Mamluk Period (XIII-XVI ce)

~ Ottoman Period (XVI-XX ce)

~ Modernity (XX-XXI ce)

We wish to draw attention to several technical points: First, since a significant   number of entries were not directly consulted but extracted from bibliographical lists   in  various books on the subject, there is a possibility of mistakes having crept in, not   to mention inevitable gaps in bibliographical information. Second, while several   relevant periodicals, among them Cathedra, Eretz-Israel, Israel Exploration Journal, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, Levant, Liber Annuus and the publications of the Israel Antiquities Authority, are being consulted in toto, there is still much work to be done in this direction. Third, we have decided to include doctoral dissertations in this project as we acknowledge that many of these works hold important innovations in the research of Christianity in Palestine/Eretz-Israel.

We hope that this attempt to provide a convenient bibliographical tool for such an immense field will be helpful to scholars and students, both those specializing in the field and those making more tentative inroads into it. Finally, we would very much appreciate any corrections, critical comments or suggestions about how to improve this data-base.

This bibliography was compiled by:

Sergey Minov (Hebrew University, Department of Comparative Religion) from 2000 to 2005

Amitai Jacobsen  (Hebrew University, Department of Comparative Religion) from 2011 to 2012

Daniel Salem (Hebrew University, Department of History) from 2012 to 2013

Yuval Iacob (Hebrew University, Department of Linguistics) from 2013 to 2014

Baruch Karlin  (Hebrew University, Department of Comparative Religion) since 2014