{"id":6259,"date":"2013-03-05T00:00:37","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T00:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/new.brethren.org\/news\/?p=6259"},"modified":"2018-11-03T20:20:30","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T20:20:30","slug":"historic-brethren-documents-now-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/2013\/historic-brethren-documents-now-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Brethren Documents Now Available Online"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by courtesy of Brethren Digital Archives<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
A page from “The Gospel Messenger” of January 5, 1924<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

How has Brethren theology changed since 1708? What was the discussion in church conferences in the late 1800s? What was life like on the mission field in the 1960s? When did my own congregation begin to meet?<\/p>\n

These are among the questions that until a few years ago could only be answered by turning pages of dusty (and sometimes fragile) Brethren publications located in basement archives of colleges and denominational offices. No one archive or library in the US contained a collection of all the publications.<\/p>\n

Representatives of the Brethren archives and current periodicals recognized that these old periodicals were valuable sources of historical, theological, and genealogical information. Yet many of them were so deteriorated that they could not be handled without being damaged. With that in mind, the group met at the Brethren Heritage Center in Brookville, Ohio, in 2007, to determine how to make these old newspapers, magazines, and journals accessible on the Internet.<\/p>\n

The estimated cost of $150,000 seemed prohibitive until the representatives secured a grant from the Sloan Foundation that would cover 90 percent of the costs. Matching funds were quickly raised through generous donations. Each of the Brethren archives provided original issues to the authorized digitizing centers in the US where they were scanned and posted to the Internet.<\/p>\n

Today, most of those publications are available at no charge online at archive.org\/details\/brethrendigitalarchives. They may be read online or downloaded in various formats to access later.<\/p>\n

The publications include:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAshland Theological Bulletin,\u201d 1968-2010
\n\u201cBible Monitor,\u201d 1922-2010
\n\u201cThe Brethren at Work,\u201d 1876-1883
\n\u201cThe Brethren Evangelist,\u201d 1919-2000 (1883-1918 in process)
\n\u201cBrethren\u2019s (Family) Almanac,\u201d 1871-1902 (1874 missing)
\n\u201cBrethren Family Almanac,\u201d 1903-1917
\n\u201cThe Brethren Missionary Herald,\u201d 1939-1996
\n\u201cThe Brethren\u2019s Missionary Visitor,\u201d 1894-1896 in progress
\n\u201cChristian Family Companion,\u201d 1865-1873
\n\u201cChristian Family Companion and Gospel Visitor,\u201d 1874-1875
\n\u201cConestogan,\u201d 1951-2010
\n\u201cDer Br\u00fcderbote,\u201d 1875-1877, 1880-1892 in progress
\n\u201cDer Evangelische Besuch,\u201d 1852-1861 in process
\n\u201cErstertheil der Theosophischen Lectionen,\u201d 1752
\n\u201cEtonian,\u201d 1922-1961<\/td>\n		\u201cThe Gospel Messenger,\u201d 1883-1964
\n\u201cThe Gospel Preacher,\u201d 1879-1882 in progress
\n\u201c(The Monthly) Gospel Visitor,\u201d 1851-1873 (1858 in process)
\n\u201cGrace Journal,\u201d 1960-1973
\n\u201cGrace Theological Journal,\u201d 1980-1991
\n\u201cThe Inglenook,\u201d 1900-1913
\n\u201cMessenger,\u201d 1965-2000
\n\u201cThe Missionary Visitor,\u201d 1902-1930 (1907, 1909 in process)
\n\u201cOur College Times,\u201d 1904-1922
\n\u201cPilgrim Almanac,\u201d 1873-1874
\n\u201c(The Weekly) Pilgrim,\u201d 1870-1876
\n\u201cThe Pilgrim,\u201d 1954-2000 (2009 in progress)
\n\u201cThe Primitive Christian (and The Pilgrim),\u201d 1876-1883
\n\u201cThe Progressive Christian,\u201d 1878-1882 in progress
\n\u201cSchwarzenau,\u201d 1939-1942<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Brethren archives and periodicals publishers that participated in project were: Ashland University Library\/Brethren Church Archives; Bethany Theological Seminary, \u201cBrethren Life and Thought\u201d; Bethany Theological Seminary\/Lilly Library; Brethren Church, \u201cThe Brethren Evangelist\u201d; Brethren Heritage Center; the Brethren Historical Library and Archives; Bridgewater College; Church of the Brethren, \u201cMessenger\u201d; Conservative Grace Brethren, \u201cThe Voice Newsletter\u201d; Dunkard Brethren, \u201cBible Monitor\u201d; Elizabethtown College\/High Library and the Young Center; Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches, \u201cBrethren Missionary Herald\u201d; Grace Seminary\/Morgan Library; Juniata College\/Beeghly Library; Manchester College Archives and Brethren Historical Collection, Funderburg Library; McPherson College; Old Brethren, \u201cThe Pilgrim\u201d; Old German Baptist Brethren, New Conference, \u201cThe Testimony\u201d; and Old German Baptist Brethren, \u201cThe Vindicator.\u201d<\/p>\n

— Larry E. Heisey of the Brethren Digital Archives committee provided this release.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How has Brethren theology changed since 1708? What was the discussion in church conferences in the late 1800s? What was life like on the mission field in the 1960s? When did my own congregation begin to meet? These are among the questions that until a few years ago could only be answered by turning pages of dusty, fragile Brethren publications located in basement archives of colleges and denominational offices. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1265,49,1343],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-6259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bhla","tag-brethren-press","tag-messenger"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6261,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6259\/revisions\/6261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6259"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=6259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}