Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (ESDA) is a global church project which aims at completing approximately 8,000 articles with accompanying photographs, media and original documents. This project is directed by and based at the General Conference Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research in Silver Spring, Maryland.
ESDA is a great tool, not only for those seeking to learn more about the church, but also for those looking to witness to others. ESDA Online, the church’s first online reference work, launched on July 1, 2020. This free online resource will continue indefinitely, to be constantly updated and expanded.
Almost 25 years after the second revised edition of the SDA Encyclopedia, and more than half a century after the publication of the first edition, the Seventh-day Adventist Church needs a new reference work—one that embodies the diverse Adventist Church of the 21st century, reflects the tremendous growth in the church in the last 50 years, the shifts in global membership, and the development of Adventist historical scholarship in the last quarter century. The Adventist Church also needs an online encyclopedia that allows all the possibilities of the digital age.
ESDA Goals
- Supply reliable and authoritative information on Adventist history, crucial events and themes, organizations, entities, institutions, and people;
- Strengthen Adventist identity in a fast-growing worldwide movement, heightening awareness of distinctive doctrinal and prophetic beliefs;
- Provide a reference work for those new to the Adventist faith and not of the Adventist faith, to learn about all aspects of Adventism;
- Bring out the role of denominational organization in fulfilling the church’s mission;
- Highlight the missional challenges still remaining in order to “reach the world”;
- Reflect the nature of the world church today, both in subject matter and in those who write and edit the encyclopedia.
Message From the Editor
This [ESDA] is the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s first online reference work and the largest, most international, most complex work of scholarship the church has undertaken.
At the time the ESDA Online launched (July 1, 2020), there were more than 2,100 articles. Around half are biographies (though only of deceased persons: there are no biographies of living subjects); the remainder are histories of organizational units (divisions, unions, conferences and missions), institutions (colleges, schools, hospitals, media centers, publishing houses and others), journals and media ministries, and of the development of important Adventist beliefs—and more.
The 2,100 articles with which we start are just a portion of the approximately 8,000 articles which the Encyclopedia Editorial Board has scheduled for publication. And 8,000 won’t be the final total; precisely because this is an online reference work, it will continue to grow. As new church organizational units are established, new institutions founded, new ministries created, and as significant figures pass away, new articles will be commissioned.
We hope that many readers will become not just consumers of the ESDA, but contributors to it, by volunteering to write articles, whether those for which we currently have no authors, or new articles. In addition, we hope that the 3,600 rare photographs on the ESDA Online, as it launched in the summer of 2020, will be greatly increased by many readers making photos, movies and video and audio recordings available for publication in the Encyclopedia.
In the more than five-year journey that led to the launch of the ESDA Online, a community of scholars emerged, dedicated to the common purpose of commemorating the history of God’s leading in the lives of many individuals and in the corporate life of His people. We hope that many more Seventh-day Adventists will become part of that virtual community, which will continue to expand and improve the Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists.
D. J. B. Trim, Ph.D., F.R.Hist.S.
Editor, Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists
https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/
