The Bondage of the Word - Copyright & the Bible

In this episode, I want to direct your attention to one of the more important articles written in modern church history. It was presented at the Evangelical Theological Society back in 1996 by Dr. Maurice A. Robinson, and to my knowledge, it has largely faded into obscurity, so I want to change that.

I realize this is a long article, but I want to encourage you to listen all the way to the end. At the beginning, you may feel a little bogged down by some of the technical jargon regarding copyright law as he builds the background and the foundation for what he's about to say.

But if you persevere through this episode, I promise you will learn some surprising things. You will hear some anecdotes that you have never heard before, and overall, I think you will be inspired with a new zeal to take part in a movement to release God's holy word from its bondage.

Not to the dark chains of Rome in the Middle Ages, but rather, to the dark desire to create profitable merchandise out of the very word of God. The Bondage of the Word, Copyright and the Bible by Maurice A. Robinson, presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in November of 1996.

Copyright Law, Public Domain, and the Ancient Texts of Scripture

Copyright as a means of special protection for the written product of an author has a long history, dating back to the guilds of antiquity. Our own laws regarding copyright stem from British jurisprudence, which in 1710 granted to authors the first meaningful protection of their own works.

In America, the framers of the Constitution declared that the Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

Note what has come about as a legal result of this provision. 1. Copyright is not an inherent right of an author, editor, composer, printer, or publisher. It is a privilege specifically granted to certain works by an act of Congress for a limited time.

2. Certain items such as government documents, book or song titles, or tabulated lists specifically have been legislatively excluded from copyright protection by Congress. 3. Once the limited term of a copyright has expired, a work will enter the public domain and become free for use by all.

Anything no longer protected by statute is deemed to be in the public domain, as well as any works which are specifically donated to the public domain. 4. The law secures the exclusive right to control one's own creative contribution only for limited times.

Material protectable by copyright includes original works of authorship, translations of a work from one language to another, and quote-unquote derivative works taken or compiled from existing sources.

Add to this the entire realm of musical composition and artistic endeavor and one can see the scope of what is copyrightable. The duration of copyright protection has varied over the years. The first copyright legislation enacted in this country granted a 14-year term, renewable for an identical period.

In 1909, a new copyright law fixed the initial period at 28 years with an equal renewal period. The copyright law of 1978, as amended, has increased the maximum from 56 years to the life of the author plus 50 years, with certain mandated exceptions.

Congress is currently considering legislation to extend the term of copyright by an additional 20 years, even though further extension will likely benefit only the copyright holding publishers rather than the original authors or their immediate heirs.

Under the 1909 law, any work published before 1940 would now be in the public domain. However, under the current law, works published between 1922 and 1940 will not enter the public domain until the period 1997 to 2015.

Only works published and copyrighted before 1922 are currently in the public domain. The change in the 1978 law has led to many abuses and much windfall profiteering which does not benefit in any way the original authors or their heirs.

For example, the manual grammar of the Greek New Testament by Dana and Manti was completed in 1935, and under the 1909 law would have become part of the public domain as of 1991. From that point, low-cost reprint houses such as CBD, Hendrickson, then would have produced royalty-free copies selling for approximately $15.

However, under the 1978 law, Macmillan publishers retained the copyright to Dana and Manti until the year 2010, thus reaping windfall profits beyond what they had ever anticipated due to the unexpected extension of copyright.

In the meantime, Macmillan has increased the price of that small volume from what was already an expensive $39 volume in 1992 to an outrageous $57 today. The current copyright law adversely impacts the common good by extending a reasonable 56-year period of protection solely to enhance the profitability of a few older books which continue to sell.

The greater benefit of public access to quality material of the past has been stifled by publishers, lobbyists, who have transformed the copyright law into a profiteering tool which frustrates the public good.

Yet in terms of the present paper, it is not the term length of copyright protection which is the matter of primary concern. My interest is in the matter of copyright in regard to ancient religious texts which de facto should be in the public domain, especially in regard to any religious work which its advocates claim to have been derived from direct revelation and inspiration such as the Bible.

In this paper, my concern clearly transcends the legal aspects of copyright law and contemplates the moral implications of copyright as applied to such texts. There are two issues at stake, the original language texts of scripture and the translations of what is deemed to be holy scripture into modern languages.

Although the same concerns could apply to the sacred texts of any religion, I intend to speak from within an evangelical Christian context respecting those matters which directly concern our community of faith and which reflect the believer's devotion to those sacred texts.

The Original Language Texts of Scripture Should Be Free to Use

1. Ancient Biblical Texts. The Old Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic and the New Testament in Greek have always been received by the Christian community as the revealed and inspired Word of God. The revelation of these texts occurred centuries ago, and they have been vouchsafed to us in thousands of original language manuscripts, ancient language translations, and patristic quotations.

The science of textual criticism has labored long and hard to ensure that the printed editions of the Greek and Hebrew texts we currently enjoy are substantially identical to the text originally revealed by God and inscribed by the human authors.

So much labor and effort has been devoted to the restoration of the sacred autograph that in most cases, we are 100 certain as to the original reading of the text, and even where differences of reading occur, we are quite certain that the true reading is preserved among the manuscripts we currently possess.

It might seem inconceivable that any modern printed edition of the ancient sacred scriptures would ever impose a claim to copyright since the public domain nature of these ancient texts should be plain by virtue of age.

Yet the Bible Societies and other publishers since the end of the last century have presumed to copyright every critically edited original language text that they have published and even take the position that the text is edited even though claimed to be the closest possible reproduction of the autographs originally given by inspiration of God, and they claim this to be the specific intellectual property of the Bible Societies themselves.

Note that this writer does not object to the copyright of introductions, appendices, the forms of an apparatus, or other explanatory details, but the biblical text itself should be a different matter.

Certainly, the vast labor of learned editors and collating manuscripts, comparing and evaluating the variations, and publishing the text determined by such scholarly effort is valuable for the Christian community as a whole.

But the question is whether such labor should be restricted by copyright from its free and open use by God's people. Should a book devoted to textual restoration be published, such a work clearly would be copyrightable.

For example, Bruce Metzger has written a volume explaining the reasons for the decisions of the UBS committee in over 1400 places of textual variance. That volume clearly reflects original creative work and is deservedly protectable by copyright.

The biblical text itself is a different matter, however. The facts are plain. Over 90 of the biblical text is common in all editions, regardless of text type, whether printed in the present century or in the 1500s.

Further, almost every variant reading cited in modern critical editions was known and published over a century ago, and scholars have been free to select from among a mass of variants since the time of Mill in 1707.

All these variant readings are as much a part of the public domain as the Greek text itself, regardless of their individual selection or rejection by modern critical editors. The present writer compared the entire Greek text of the 1994 Nestle 27th edition against the now public domain 1881 Westcott-Hort Greek text.

Out of approximately 138 ,000 words, there were only 1600 variational differences between both editions, and half of these were merely the presence or absence of brackets surrounding the identical text.

Most of the remaining 800 differences were already clearly known from previously published editions, critical apparati, or collations of the past century, which shows clearly that in textual matters as elsewhere, there is nothing new under the sun.

It's interesting to note that the editors of the UBS and Nestle 27 text made at least one alteration from the text of Westcott and Hort in every book of the New Testament, seemingly thus to ensure that their edition would not be identical with the public domain Westcott-Hort text in any given New Testament book.

By rearranging variant readings, they produced a text differing only sporadically from that of the Westcott and Hort. The resultant text, which remains 99 .9 identical to its public domain predecessor, is then somehow claimed to be unique, the result of contemporary scholarly labor and thus copyrightable.

A similar procedure is followed in regard to the Bible Society's Stuttgart edition of the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament, which merely reproduces the exact text of the ancient manuscript St. Petersburg Leningrad B19a, whose text remains virtually identical to almost all other manuscripts and previous printed editions of the Hebrew Bible.

Even where slight differences occur in the manuscript B19a, which reflect scribal peculiarities or differences between recensions, virtually all of the basic variations had long ago been noted in the collation data of Kennecott and Rossi from the 1700s.

Again, there is nothing new under the sun, and that which is not new should not be copyrightable. Some might ask, however, is not the deep and diligent labor of the critic sufficient in merit copyright protection?

The answer is no. Supreme Court decisions, such as Rural Telephone v. Feist, have declared that what is termed, quote-unquote, sweat of the brow labor, based upon intellectual decisions regarding pre-existing factual data, is specifically excluded from copyright protection.

Editorial selection from pre-existing public domain readings does not, in itself, create a protectable entity. The present writer has prepared a volume, The Greek New Testament According to the Byzantine Majority Text Form.

Every reading in that edition, though carefully selected by myself and my co-editor from among numerous variants, was derived from pre-existing public domain sources, and copyright is thus only claimed for the introduction and appendices to that volume.

Yet how, by any criterion, a text constructed out of pre-existing ancient manuscript data should be copyrightable seems beyond comprehension, even if that text reflected the result of 15 years of joint editorial research and evaluation of individual variant readings.

But the truth is plain, our labor created nothing new, but merely utilized freely available material from the past in light of a specific text-critical methodology in order to construct a close approximation to the autographed text.

Sweat of the brow labor of this nature is not copyrightable, regardless of its merit. My editor and myself freely offered the electronic form of our text to the public and to the publisher with no thought of remuneration or personal gain, specifically because it was the biblical text which was at issue.

There is no reason, no good reason, why the Bible Societies or other publishers should not apply the same policy to the original language source texts of the Old and New Testaments. If a work is merely a reflection of a public domain text or a reproduction of public domain variations from manuscripts which make up that text, copyright should not be claimed.

There is no original work being performed and the creative selection which produces the final product is strictly labor based. Scholarly labor in such a situation, which is commendable, merely selects a pattern of readings out of pre-existing data and publishes that pattern as an edition of the Greek or Hebrew Bible.

Much labor is involved, and certainly the laborer is worthy of his hire. The authors or publishers of such editions will generate the deserved profit from the initial publication of such works. However, the text as an entity should not be copyrightable, though introductions, prolegomena, and the specific format of a critical apparatus are protected.

Once the publication of an edited biblical text has occurred, anyone should be able to utilize that edition freely as public domain material since those texts themselves claim to be nothing more than an almost exact equivalent of the inspired autograph.

God himself was the initial publisher long ago. Does he not hold the ultimate copyright to his own divinely revealed words? Is God's intent to benefit his people by the free and unhindered dissemination of that word or not?

The time is long overdue for the Bible societies to renounce copyright on the original language texts of the Bibles they prepare and distribute. This especially includes the elimination of the incongruous policy of charging a license fee or royalty payment in order to utilize what they claim are the original texts of the word of God in either printed or electronic form.

The Bible societies were constituted to SERVE the churches and to be supported by free will offerings from God's people. Their charter declares their mission to be a united endeavor based upon cooperation from Christians and churches of various denominations to promote the dissemination of copies and portions of scripture at the lowest possible cost with the goal of enhancing and not of restricting the distribution of the biblical texts and translations.

With the advent of electronic publishing, the lowest possible cost is now often free, except for the intrusion of license or royalty fees. To charge such fees, whether to a consumer, book publisher, or software programmer, merely so that they might utilize a translation or critically restored version of the word of God is not only unbiblical, but borders on the unethical and unconscionable.

Yet, such fees, along with other restrictions, continue to be imposed whenever publishers or individuals might desire to use such edited texts to promote the reading, study, and use of the word of God.

Copyright claims and licensing fees imposed upon God's people, merely so that they can use God's word, is an immoral action into which the Bible societies themselves should be ashamed ever to have entered.

Such a policy does not serve God's people in the most honorable or efficient manner, and anyone should be ashamed to charge a fee for permission to publish God's holy word. I would exhort the Bible societies to eliminate all royalty or license fee restrictions and to permit the free dissemination of the biblical texts in the original languages and ancient versions.

While it is obviously permissible for a publisher to recoup costs of production and advertising in their own printed volumes, it is quite another matter to claim that the very text of the word of God is some sort of proprietary matter or intellectual property which can be bartered and sold by those who maintain the exclusive copyright to such.

There is a guilt which remains upon certain heads in this regard, and the Bible societies in particular need once more to recognize their original mission and purpose and begin to support those purposes with integrity and responsibility and not with bullying legal claims to talk of intellectual property which supposedly subsists in man's rendition of God's holy word.

Modern Bible Versions and the Difference Between Translation and Modernization

2. Modernized Bible Versions. Another area in which the laws of copyright have been invoked to the disadvantage of God's people involves modernized English renditions of previous English translations.

Certainly, translations from one language into another is protected by copyright law. This includes modern translations of any ancient text, even though the original language forms of such texts may be in the public domain.

Homer's Odyssey translated into English is clearly protected by copyright, but it's questionable whether putting the works of Shakespeare into contemporary English rather than its 17th century form is really quote-unquote translation.

A questionable and thin use of the translation provision of the copyright law has been manipulated by certain publishers to create an illusion of translation when little or no real translation has occurred.

Translation reflects the original creative work of those who render a text from one language to another. A simple modernization of older English words or expressions to those in current use is not translation, nor is the restructuring of antiquated English syntax.

Merely because a rendition ultimately derives from a non-English original is not sufficient ground for presupposing that modernization of the archaic English text is a primary act of translation regardless of whether the original language texts are consulted and diligently compared during the modernization process.

For example, no one would claim that the KJV is a translation of the Bishop's Bible, even though a similar process occurred in that revision, paralleling what one sees in the NKJV or NASV. There is no original creation involved in such a process, and the result should not have been copyrighted, let alone have become proprietary to any individual publisher.

Infringement cannot and should not occur when significant creativity has not been involved in the production of a work. This of course does not preclude a publisher from claiming and even filing a copyright protection.

The U .S. Copyright Office will supply notice of copyright to almost any work submitted with the proper forms and fees. The Copyright Office does not have the time or manpower to determine the validity of that copyright, but notes that any infringement of copyright must be pursued in a court of law, and only the court can determine whether a claimed copyright is valid.

The fact that a work is issued a certificate by the Copyright Office does not make it a valid copyright. Consider a parallel example, were I to prepare and attempt to copyright a novel derived from John Grisham's The Firm, with 95 of my text still in agreement with Grisham's original wording, only the names of the characters might be changed.

I certainly would not possess a valid copyright, regardless of the action of the U .S. Copyright Office concerning my application for such. In fact, I certainly would be liable for damages due to plagiarizing infringement.

To consider even the previous example of a work which is clearly in the public domain, were I to modernize the 5 Elizabethan English of Shakespeare, and leave 95 of the text as he originally wrote it, my copyright on the final product would and should be called into question as a non-original work which basically, though legally, plagiarized the Bard's original text.

Certainly, I could not be sued for appropriating public domain material, but anyone else could modernize Shakespeare in an identical or near-identical fashion so as to produce a text like my own, and I would have no legal recourse since, by definition, infringement could not occur.

The slight modification of an original source does not represent a creative production which should be protectable by copyright. It would smack of blatant plagiarism for me to claim authorship and copyright and royalty protection for my Shakespearean text where 95 of it remains identical to the original.

The case is no different in regard to so-called English Bible translations which are primarily mere modernizations of older public domain versions. The bulk of the text of such modernizing versions is identical to that found in their public domain predecessors, and almost anyone familiar with contemporary English would be able to perform the same task even without a knowledge of the original languages.

Despite claims to that effect, the modernization of archaic language and restructuring its form of expression even in light of the original underlying texts is not and should not be considered translation nor should be protected by copyright.

There are two major translations currently marketed as modernizations of older translations which long ago became part of the public domain in this country. Regardless of the scholarship involved in its production, the New King James Version is little more than the modernization and restructuring of the 1759 Blaney Revision of the 1611 KJV.

Words and phraseology were updated but significant real translation rarely occurred. The facts are simple, the average person who can handle Elizabethan English, not being familiar with the NKJV and not consulting such in the process, could randomly select almost any chapter of the original KJV and modernize it so successfully that he or she will find that the resultant text will be approximately 95 identical to the NKJV.

Such a revision process primarily concerns simple matters such as the alteration of thee or thou into you or the altering of God forbid into may it not be or certainly not. Whether one proclaims thus saith the Lord or thus says the Lord, the public domain nature of the text remains evident.

Even the removal of archaisms such as replacing niecing with sneezing or letteth with restrains is not translation, but simple non-copyrightable modernization. Such a modernization process also includes basic syntactical restructuring.

Know ye not becomes know you not and must be restructured to do you not know? Again, no real translation occurs with such a process, but merely the modernization of older forms of expression within the same language base.

Most anyone familiar with older and current English should be able to produce a nearly identical product even without consulting and comparing against the original Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic underlying texts.

The case is simple. No one should presume to claim copyright protection for simple English modernization, whether the text be that of Shakespeare or the word of God itself. Yet every modernized revision of the KJV claims copyright protection, not only the NKJV, but also minor editions such as J. Green's Modern KJV and the recently advertised 21st Century KJV.

None of these editions reflects a true work of translation since little or no real translation has actually occurred to produce the final product. The Lachman Foundation similarly claims copyright for their translation of the New American Standard Version when it also is little more than a modernization of the public domain American Standard Version of 1901.

As an experiment, the present writer modernized a sample chapter of the New Testament, Matthew 4, from the ASV 1901 without consulting either the NASV or the Greek text. Without even trying, my modern English result was 96 identical with the wording of the NASV.

In the 4 where differences of rendering occurred, either my own or the NASV rendering could have been acceptable. I of course was prejudiced in favor of my own rendition. Lest anyone presume that such occurred because I was already familiar with either the NASV or the ASV, this was not the case since I have not used the NASV during the past 10 years and rarely use the ASV.

I also did not consult the underlying Greek text during the modernization process. The claim is regularly made in promoting both the NKJV and the NASV regarding the diligent and strenuous labor of numerous editors and translators of both translations over a period of many years at great expense and how stylists went over every line of the product to bring it to perfection.

While this is true, and a noble undertaking in all respects, the fact remains that despite all the hoopla, the end result in either version is a product which in general, the average English speaking person with simple common sense could create on the fly as he or she read from the original KJV or ASV, modernizing the English as need required.

Certainly those who know the biblical languages can improve the final product at certain points, but for the average person, the end result remains similar to what anyone without the benefit of scholarship or ancient language skills could accomplish.

The current text of both editions remains primarily a mere modernization of pre-existing public domain translations. By pressing a claim of copyright, both the Lachman Foundation and Thomas Nelson Publishers suggest that there is something original, creative, and unique in their modernized translations.

But, remember Grisham and Shakespeare? Had the identical process been used to make a modernization of a current copyrighted volume, and the respective final texts ever been subjected to an open demonstration of how easily anyone could produce virtually the same product by altering the original English language sources, I doubt that any judge or jury would hold the text to be copyrightable, let alone proprietary, but that such publishers would be found liable for plagiarism of the copyrighted text.

The advantage which the KJV and NASV publishers possess is that, just as with Shakespeare, no one can or will bring charges from the original KJV or ASV in regard to infringement, so it seems ludicrous that they should then claim a particular proprietary right in the modernized product merely because no claim of infringement is possible.

Do not misunderstand my point. The problem is not with these publishers and their modern renditions of public domain translations, nor even with their making a reasonable profit from publishing such versions in a variety of forms.

The problem is with the specific claim that such texts must become exclusive and proprietary to them, protected by copyright and requiring a license or royalty fee from anyone who might otherwise desire to publish and distribute those texts.

One publisher who licenses the NASV from the Lockman Foundation told me that they must pay a royalty fee exceeding 10 to the Lockman Foundation for each copy of the NASV that they sell. This should not be the case considering that virtually anyone could produce a near-identical product with no expenditure of effort beyond mere English modernization of the 1901 ASV.

Allow me to propose a money-saving alternative for all publishers. Assemble a team of scholars who will work voluntarily for the glory of God alone, who will then use computer technology for search and replace, and finally completely modernize the 1901 ASV from scratch so as to produce a totally public domain version of the ASV.

The result will be a royalty-free modern American Standard version, which will be 95 or more identical to the wording of the NASV, but which will require no licensing or royalty fees for anyone to use.

Such a text would clearly be available freely to all, and anyone would be free to publish that modern ASV with no copyright problems, let alone licenses or royalty fees. The same can just as easily be done with the KJV so as to produce a free public domain equivalent to the NKJV which would be nearly identical to it.

The rationale for such a proposal is clear. The Word of God, in any form, should be free for all to use with no restrictions or hindrances to hobble the free dissemination of God's Holy Word to a dying world.

License and royalty fees have become attached to the text of the Word of God primarily because publishers are more interested in the almighty dollar than they are in a commitment to serving God and ministering to His people.

Note that I am not arguing that publishers should not print and distribute numerous Bible editions, nor that they cannot make some profit on each copy sold. I am rather railing against proprietary restrictions which hinder the free and open dissemination of God's Word, regardless of translation, whether such restrictions are designed to enrich the publishers or not.

The KJV itself appears in hundreds of editions from numerous publishers in every type of format, varying in price and quality. The 1901 ASV has also been reprinted by various publishers since it entered the public domain in 1957.

The publishers of the KJV or the 1901 ASV make whatever profit they can in a free market economy and serve the people of God in the process. No proprietary claim can be involved with the dissemination of those versions since they are already a part of the public domain.

It should be recognized that neither the quality of the KJV or ASV nor the profits for their publishers are harmed by the free and open availability of these versions from multiple sources, and God's people derive great spiritual benefit thereby.

But licensing and royalty restrictions imposed upon the modernizations of those versions reflect a bold attempt to seize the rights to God's Word from His people and financially to restrict the free distribution of that Word until the proper fee be paid.

Publishers should freely release such modernized versions into the public domain so that all the people of God may be unrestricted in their use of such, with no financial or legal hindrances attached.

Every publisher can earn a just profit by marketing the biblical text in a multitude of specialty editions. There is no question that introductions, study notes, and supplementary materials which appear in such editions will remain proprietary and protected by copyright.

The only issue is that the text of scripture itself should be freely distributable, regardless of translation. Modernized versions of public domain translations should not become the peculiar property of any publisher, regardless of sponsorship, how many revisors participated, or at what cost.

The ultimate product of sweat-of-the-brow labor should not be copyrightable. Real translation, a recasting of the biblical text into a wholly unique form of expression directly from the original languages, has not occurred in such cases, only the modernization of an existing freely available text.

Copyright and Modern Translations of the Bible

3. Other Modern Translations. But what about translations which are not mere modernizations? According to the law, these indeed can be copyrighted and thus licensed to various publishers and distributors for a fee.

Most modern dynamic equivalency translations fall under this category, whether the New International Version, the Jerusalem Bible, the Contemporary English Version, or the many others currently in print.

One can wonder, however, whether the motivating factor in the multiplication and publication of such translations is the glory of God, or the enlargement of publishers bankrolls. The awful truth is that Bible publishing is a huge profit-making enterprise, and most publishers seek to enlarge their profits by every means available, without regard for concepts such as sharing and ministry as a primary factor.

As an example, the New International Version was produced under the auspices of the International Bible Society and was funded by the freewill gifts of God's people and churches. That translation should have become freely available to God's people with no restriction or royalty fees attached.

Yet, the exclusive rights to the NIV were transferred to the profit-oriented Zondervan Corporation which, due to the great popularity of the NIV, has imposed on other publishers some of the most outrageous license and royalty restrictions that have ever been attached to a translation.

And let me read a footnote here. One software publisher, here Mr. J, though I know his real name, told me via the internet that his request for a license to use the NIV in his proposed product was denied due to his inability to guarantee a minimum sales quota of $10 ,000 worth of copies per year, even though he would have been able to pay the required $10 ,000 upfront licensing fee, as well as the subsequent percentage royalty fee for sales.

The absurdity of this licensing arrangement is further compounded by the fact that, in the time since the Zondervan Corporation originally obtained the rights to the NIV, that corporation has been sold and is now a subsidiary of the secular Harper Collins publishing chain, which is a part of the same conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch, which includes Fox Broadcasting.

Mr. J also sought a similar permission from the American Bible Society to publish the TEV, CEV, and Versión Popular in electronic form, either for free or for any royalty fee, reasonable or unreasonable.

His report is disheartening. Feel free to relate the ABS absolute denial of my request on behalf of Rainbow Missions Inc. They had decided not to grant my request based on the lack of security of my internet distribution method.

Horrors, someone might read the gospel without paying for it. Even after communicating assurances of security due to encryption technology, Mr. J was again refused permission, with a message from the Bible Society to the effect that they had decided not to let anyone have electronic rights to publish their Bible texts, including I presume, the foreign language texts that they act as copyright representatives for in the USA, but that if they were published at all, that they would do it themselves.

Mr. J's comments to me declare a well-founded exasperation. Quote, Frankly, I feel like I've been ripped off, having contributed to the ABS based on their stated purpose of providing the holy scriptures to every man, woman, and child in a language and form each can readily understand and at a price each can easily afford.

I fail to comprehend how these go together. This action does not match their mission statement very well. End quote and end of footnote. Numerous Bible study tools marketed by Zondervan now bear the trademarked term NIV in the title, even if that translation is not the primary focus of such books.

The profit motive in this regard is obvious. Speaking as a Southern Baptist, even Brodman-Holman publishers have joined the vicious cycle by licensing the NIV as the base text of its New American Commentary series with certain restrictions accompanying such a license which should not be tolerated in a commentary series.

When Bible publishers start demanding $10 ,000 royalty fees, as well as a required sales quota, merely to obtain a license to utilize a contemporary translation, something is clearly amiss. The people of God should never have been willing to barter away their rights to His precious word.

When exactly did God's people determine to surrender their rights to God's word and to allow the publishing community to dictate its use to the churches? It is the publishers who should be paying the church's royalties for making profit from that word, rather than the reverse.

If silver and gold interferes with the unrestricted use and dissemination of God's word as the sacred scripture for the Christian community, it will be the copyright holding publishers who will have to answer for their motives at the judgment.

The initial release of the English Revised Version of 1881 -1885 was free of copyright in the United States and was intended for mass distribution. It was the first major revision since the 1769 Blaney revision of the King James in 1611.

The day it was released, two major daily newspapers in Chicago printed the complete ERV New Testament text. This was followed by a number of US publishers releasing editions of the ERV with no restrictions attached.

When the American edition of the ERV was published 16 years later as the American Standard Version of 1901, matters somehow had changed. The American revision, identical to the ERV except for the incorporation of various changes recommended by the American Committee, was copyrighted by Thomas Nelson and Sons Publishers with the enigmatic statement "...to ensure purity of text.".

There was also a notice that Thomas Nelson and Sons was specifically certified to be the publisher of the only editions authorized by the American Committee of Revision. That copyright was renewed in 1929 but transferred to the International Council of Christian Education, the forerunner of the National Council of Churches, with both statements still attached.

In fact, the original 1946 edition of the Revised Standard Version was also similarly copyrighted to "...ensure purity of text.". Although it may be questioned what purity of text needed to be specifically ensured, and it does not specify who the anticipated or real corruptors might have been, the answer is not long in coming.

The prefaces to both the 1901 ASV and the 1946 RSV New Testament make the situation quite clear. It was agreed that, respecting all points of ultimate difference, the English companies who had the initiative in the work of revision should have the decisive vote.

But as an offset to this, it was proposed on the British side that the American preferences should be published as an appendix in every copy of the Revised Bible during the term of 14 years. The American Committee on their part pledged themselves to give, for the same limited period, no sanction to the publication of any other editions of the Revised Version than those issued by the University Presses of England.

It now, 1901, seems to be expedient to issue an edition of the Revised Version with those preferences embodied in the text. Because of unhappy experience with unauthorized publications in the two decades between 1881 and 1901, which tampered with the text of the English Revised Version in the supposed interests of the American public by placing the American preferences into the main text rather than in the appendix, the American Standard Version was copyrighted to protect the text from unauthorized changes.".