Sunday, March 22, 2009

Zhubert, Copyright and Textual Criticism

Sad news this weekend (here, here, and here) that the excellent free Greek resource, zhubert (or ReGreek), has been shut down because of copyright complaints from the German Bible Society, whose motto is "Die Bibel zu den Menschen bringen."

I have nothing positive to say about the German Bible Society in this regard. They should know that letting sites like zhubert use a resource based on their text is not going to cut into sales of print volumes. And if they are a society dedicated to bringing the Bible "to the people," well . . .

One good thing that may come of this--if free resources are forced to fall back on the Westcott-Hort text--is a greater willingness to question the status of the UBS4 text as the modern-day "text received by all."

I should note that the Open Scriptures Project aims to resurrect zhubert. More power to them!

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