How to use Apologetics Index (original) (raw)

How to find information in Apologetics Index

Table of contents

• How to find information in Apologetics Index
• Perspectives / Color Key
• Broken Links
• Stubs — Work In Progress
• Suggest Additional Research Resources
• FAQ

Since Apologetics Index first went online, in September, 1996, this website — along with sister website Religion News Blog — has grown to include over 47,917 pages. Yet, relevant information is easy to find.

• Topics are listed alphabetically: Select an index (A – Z)
• People are listed like this: Last name, First name
• This A – Z index is incomplete! Find more topics:
• The Search Form above only searches recent or recently updated entries
• For a more thorough search, including older entries, use Google Search, Perplexity, Bing, or any other search engine of your choice.
  • Search example: Type new apostolic reformation site:apologeticsindex.org

Note: On your trips through the Apologetics Index website you are likely to encounter lots of older style pages — dating back as far as 1996 — complete with funky color-schemes and/or odd layouts. Rest assured… as long as it says ‘apologeticsindex.org’ in your address bar, you’re still within our website. (And yes, we have been promising ourselves to update those pages. Don’t hold your breath, though.)

Perspectives / Color Key

The publishers of Apologetics Index operate from an orthodox, evangelical Christian point of view, but the intent of this site is to provide research resources from a variety of perspectives.

We employ a simple color-coding system, which is used to help you identify the general background of sites, articles and other listings.

Put another way: we don’t see ourselves as ‘the last word’ on the topics addressed. While we certainly have (and share) our opinions we purposely encourage you to do your own research.

We also encourage you to suggest additional research resources for possible inclusion.

Quoted Material

Throughout this site we quote material from various resources. Some of it, quoted inline, “looks like this; navy-colored (or a darker shade of blue) text between quotation marks.”

However…

..most quoted material looks looks this: an indented block of text with a vertical, blue-colored bar to the left.

More often than not you’ll find the citation directly underneath the quote.

Broken Links

Apologetics Index includes an incredible amount of links, collected over a period of 25+ years.

Therefore it is normal that you will encounter many broken links — especially on the older entries.

Links break for various reasons: websites are closed, or are moved to a different address. Some website owners rearrange their collection of articles and forget to redirect browsers from the old links to the new ones. Articles are also taken off-line — either because they are no longer deemed relevant, have been removed due to legal challenges, or because they are now included in printed books.

Many online newspapers and magazines make articles available for free for a limited amount of time before moving them behind pay-walls.

Whatever the reason a link is broken, researchers can often — though certainly not always — retrieve a version of the material by visiting Archive.Today or the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

If you encounter a broken link, copy that link and paste it in the search box at Archive Today or the Wayback Machine.

If the link has been archived, you will see the archived material at Archive.Today. In the Wayback Machine you will see a timeline and details on how often the information at that link has been captured. 1Some sites prevent their pages from being archived. Particularly in the case of the Wayback Machine, you may at times encounter things you’d rather not see — including spam or worse. This happens if someone purchased an old domain name, created different content, and edited the so-called ‘robots.txt’ file to redirect any links to previous content as archived at the Wayback Machine to the new site. That tactic is often used by spammers who want to take advantage of an old domain name’s popularity.

On the calendar that is included, click on a date inside a blue circle, and you will see the article or website you were looking for.

Stubs — Work In Progress

Note: we have abandoned the use of stubs. Essentially, what you see is what you get.

Some entries may consists of just a very brief description, referring to one of two resources. These entries may or may not get updated with more information in the future.

A website like Apologetics Index is never quite complete. There will always be entries to update and new topics to add.

Throughout the site you’ll find both extensive and brief entries. Some entries include pointers to a wide variety of resources, usually from various perspectives, while other entries are – for the time being – briefer and/or more one-sided.

As always, we encourage you to fully research subjects and issues from a variety of perspectives and sources.

One way we approach newer entries is by creating so-called stubs.

A ‘stub‘ is an entry which, when first added to Apologetics Index, we considered too short and/or too incomplete to highlight on the front page (and in the articles RSS feed).

While not (yet) complete, these stubs nevertheless provide researchers with useful information — and you will therefore find links to them within the A-Z index.

Suggest Additional Research Resources

We always welcome suggestions for additional resources.

FAQ

Some frequently-asked questions — and our answers.

We hope you enjoy your visit to Apologetics Index. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

Janet and Anton Hein & the Apologetics Index Team

Footnotes