Mobile Ministry Magazine

One of the conversations that I have because of my involvement with the Bible+ project is the issue of copyright and publishing rights for various versions of the Bible. As a cultural thing, we usually assume that because it is the Word of God, and that Jesus paid it all, we should be able to get the Word in the version that we want it to for little to no cost. When one speaks about the digital side of things, we want also the ability to have to pay once and get both print and digital versions. This is not at all a bad want, but it is not at all how the Bible publishing industry works. Check out this posting at Think Christian on some more intricacies of Bibles and publishing:

...While most of us recognize that Bible publishing is a business that needs to make a profit and sell products, I get uncomfortable with the Bible as an eternal Word getting too entangled with an ephemeral culture. The question when it comes to packaging the Bible, of course, is how far is too far? A 2,000 year old book written in Hebrew and Greek should be made accessible to a modern, English-speaking audience, but how can we do so without it becoming trendy and cheapened? How do we strike a balance?

The article in the New Yorker on which the Think Christian post was based has some other good points on why things are the way that they are.

How can things be made better from both an accessibility and profitability standpoint (in effect respecting a verse such as this, while getting in the Word we want to read)?