I wonder how a thing so sacred could be owned and then used for commercial purposes. By that I mean, making money from the sale of it as if the Bible were nothing more than a fictional novel. This has always bothered me, and yet I am a practical fellow who understands that the more sacred an object is, the more money it is worth.

What would happen, for instance, if the U.S. government tried to sell the mountain called Bear Butte in South Dakota, which is considered sacred by the Lakota and Cheyenne nations? Would American Indians be up in arms if their holy mountain, where they believe their moral code was delivered to humankind, was suddenly sold to developers who planned to build condos and hotels? I think you could count on a massive protest.

But I also understand the Bible is different. In fact, it is probably necessary that it is owned and, therefore, controlled by a few publishing companies. If it were in the public domain -- that is, if anyone could reprint the Bible -- we would see countless deletions and revisions.

For instance, the wealthy might want to remove the passage that says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

In fact, Thomas Jefferson, the great American statesman, once issued his own version of the Bible, with copious red-lined deletions. Allegedly, there were many things in the Bible, Jefferson thought unnecessary and, perhaps, dangerous to a free society.

Through copyright laws in this country, certain translations or versions of the Bible are owned by big publishing companies. Those companies obtain the rights to the Bible by hiring biblical scholars who work with the Hebrew and Greek versions of the Bible and produce new English language editions for sale in the United States.

The exclusive commercial publishing rights for the New International Version of the Bible, for instance, are owned by Zondervan Publishing House in Grand Rapids, Mich. The non-commercial rights are owned by the International Bible Society.

Here's how that happened. More than 30 years ago, Zondervan and the International Bible Society decided to become partners and publish a new contemporary language version of the Bible. They hired Bible scholars who were capable of translating both the Old and New Testaments from the original languages. Over the years, each translation was revised and tested for ease of reading.

Finally in 1983, after years of study and thousands of dollars in development, the translation of the New International Version that you use today hit the market. It has since become one of the best-selling versions of the Bible ever published.

There are many other versions of the Bible: the King James, Revised Standard, New Revised Standard and many others. You would notice the difference in most of those translations if you saw them side by side.

Because Zondervan owns the commercial rights to the New International Version, they can apparently package that translation any way they want as long as it does not change the accuracy, clarity or beauty of the language.

So Zondervan now has a whole bunch of Bibles ready for the market. They have Bibles for women, men, students, moms and teen-agers. The have a Bible for the living quest, Christian growth and full life. They have a women's devotional Bible in a pink binding and a men's devotional Bible in what appears to be a solid marble cover.

There's even a couple's devotional Bible and one exclusively for the family walk. And finally, there is a seniors' devotional Bible that will help the elderly evaluate their so-called golden years.

Almost all good and devout people can now find Bibles designed for them. I'm wondering when they're going to design Bibles to eradicate sin. I would like to see an entire series of Bibles for sinners -- overeaters, gossipers, liars and backsliders of every sort. That's when sales will really skyrocket.

Clark D. Morphew