Secondary Resources for Biblical Interpretation: Secondary Resources

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A Secondary Resource is a document or another item that provides an information about a primary document and/or a historical event. A secondary resources could be a description, an interpretation, an alaysis, a commentary and/or an evaluation of a historical event and/or phenomenon. Secondary resources are often created by scholars, commentators, analysts and/or any other person for a specific purpose and/or a target specific audience. 

The following types of documents are examples of secondary resources:

• History books
• Journal articles
• Encyclopedia entries
• Commentaries
• Essays

The following types of documents are examples of primary resources. Secondary resources are different from primary resources that provide a first-hand account of a historical event:

• Autobiographies
• Oral histories
• Legal documents
• Memoires, diaries, journals, etc.
• Personal histories

For more information on primary resources please see the What is a primary resource? page.