The video tutorial here by Atla provides three methods for the one approach of doing a scripture search in the database. Sometimes doing keyword/subject as well as scripture searches can be beneficial in maximizing results.
1 - Go to the APU library website: https://apu.edu/library.
2 - Below the image, click on the tab "Articles and Databases". Click "Search"
3 - In the drop-down menu, In the upper left, select "Biblical Studies".
4 - Choose “ATLA Religion Database with ATLAS PLUS” from the "Best Bets" box.
If you haven't logged in, you must before getting to the database.
5 - From along the top, select "Thesaurus"
The idea is to browse the thesaurus and find terms that are more appropriate for your search. This database uses "subject headings" from the Library of Congress. These are the technical terms used to catalog all these articles. Each term is meant to represent about 40% of the content of an article.
6 - In the browse box enter your term. Two examples, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, will appear as "Elizabeth , (Biblical figure)". It is the complex way of identifying which Elizabeth is being discussed. John the Baptist, the name of a hundred churches, is listed as "John , the Baptist , Saint". So, just understand that it is more complex than just entering a person's name.
To be sure you have exactly what you are looking for, click the term and read the "Scope notes". Also, below the "scope notes" there are lists of other terms related, either more broadly or more narrowly.
7 - If you have the correct term, select, or tic the box, of the term you desire to use for your search. Once it is selected, click the "search" box found near the top of the page.
From here, either add more terms or use the limiters to narrow your results list.
1 - Go to the APU library website: https://apu.edu/library.
2 - Below the image, click on the tab "Articles and Databases". Click "Search."
3 - In the drop-down menu, In the upper left, select "Biblical Studies."
4 - Choose “ATLA Religion Database with ATLAS PLUS” from the "Best Bets" box.
If you haven't logged in, you must before getting to the database.
5 - From along the top, select "More" and then "Indexes." {Note: Some librarians suggest using "Scriptures" index from the options on the top as an alternate method -- each method can work better or supplement your results on certain searches!)
6 - On the new page, under "Browse an Index", change the dropdown menu to "Bible Citation" and click "Browse."
In the "Browse for" box, we recommend that you at least enter book and chapter of your passage to start your search, e.g. Luke 13, even though you may only be interested in parts of Luke 13.
7 - Now tic all the boxes that represent verses or parts of passages. Hint: this is not arranged numerically, but like decimals, i.e. 10 is before 2 because the 1 comes before a 2. It is weird, but it works. Scroll through the list to make sure you include every verse in your passage and all the articles that include your text.
8 - Click "Search."
From here, either add more terms or use the limiters to narrow your results list.
The limiters are meant to filter the articles to only those that are useful to you. That has meant that if you couldn't read a language, you should set the language limit to, say, English and ignore articles written in other languages.. Over the years Google Translate has gotten to the point that it can do a good enough job that a reader can get the gist of a text, although not all the nuance of a native reader. Google Translate does a reasonable job translating some of the more popular languages. It appears to do well with Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese.
Whether Google Translate will work or not will depend on the type of PDF of the article. PDFs come in two types of files. One type of file makes the pdf basically a picture of a page; this will not work with Google Translate. The other type is OCR (Optical Character Recognition) which means the computer scans each character and makes the document "readable". If the document is an OCR type PDF (no, they are not identified that way, you can download the file and drop it into the Google Translate website.
Sometimes the database will give you the option of HTML or PDF; if the article is in a language you don't read, use to the HTML version and then use the URL and paste it in Google Translate.