Copyright as a Perversion of Justice & Corruption of Bible Translation

Read or download this chapter or the whole work: God's Word Is Not Bound.Is copyright really a form of property, and is copying actually theft? In this chapter of God’s Word Is Not Bound, I examine copyright through Scripture and natural law and argue that intellectual property turns justice on its head. Biblical property rights exist to prevent conflict over tangible things: if someone takes your sheep, land, or money, you no longer possess what was taken. But ideas and words work differently. They can be copied and shared without depriving anyone of them. The chapter argues that Scripture nowhere treats copying words or ideas as theft and even presents the copying of God’s Word as something to be encouraged. When copyright is applied to Scripture, the problem becomes especially serious: human beings use state power to restrict the copying, translation, recording, and distribution of revelation that ultimately belongs to God. Rather than accepting copyright simply because it is legal or customary, Christians are challenged to ask whether the state has any God-given authority to manufacture ownership rights over information in the first place, and whether placing “all rights reserved” over God’s Word is really stewardship or a perversion of justice.