Mon Aug 26 19:27:18 1996

From owner-tc-list  Mon Aug 26 19:27:18 1996
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Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 19:22:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Maurice Robinson 
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Software for NT TC??
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On Mon, 26 Aug 1996, Dale M. Wheeler wrote:

> The problem is the reluctance of the United and German
> Bible societies; they are at this point unwilling to license out the data
> for electronic use. As I have been privy to some of these discussions, it 
> seems that their basic concern is the misappropriation and misuse of the
> electronic versions, ie., someone makes a minor adjustment to the data and,
> voila, publishes their own GreekNT with textual apparatus (they had the same
> fears for the text, which delayed its electronic distribution for years).

This is all the more reason why the bible societies should simply
recognize and declare the biblical text itself to be public domain instead
of trying to be selfishly proprietary with the very texts they were
constituted to distribute freely or at the lowest possible cost.

The same likewise should occur for the simple _factual_ data regarding
manuscript variations in the apparati (mere facts under US law cannot be
copyrighted).  

In view of the non-cooperation of the bible societies in this area,
someone (anyone!) would do the entire scholarly community a wonderful
service if they merely would prepare an electronic edition of the public
domain texts and apparatuses of Tischendorf and/or Von Soden, with the
older numbers simply converted to those in current use.  Correction of
errors in those apparati could be made later.

_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D.           Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary     Wake Forest, North Carolina
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