Letter to the Pope?

I think I will write to the Pope today... or maybe tomorrow. We will have to see.

This Saturday at 2:00 pm Eastern time, I will be co-hosting a Talkshoe radio program about the book of Matthew's divorce exception clause. We will be interviewing an expert in the ancient Greek used to write the original biblical texts. So, the day before yesterday, I went to our local chain bookstore to find a Catholic Bible. The Catholic Bible is different from other Bibles because it uses pre-Erasmus texts. So the divorce exception clause is not in the Catholic Bible. And I wanted a copy of the pre-Erasmus version of the texts for the talkshoe show this weekend.

When I got to the Bible section of the bookstore, all the Catholic Bibles were the New Standard edition. There were no other versions there. So I looked up Matthew 19, just to be certain. I was sadly disappointed. Lo and behold, the divorce exception clause has crept into the New Standard version of the Catholic Bible as "except for unchastity." (Now how many ordinary Christian people are going to know that Matthew was written to the Jews and unchastity refers to the time during betrothal? Oh, and by the way, that is still not in the original Biblical texts!) So, yesterday, I drove all the way into the city to find another version of the Catholic Bible. I did find a version of the Bible which is in relatively plain language and it does NOT have the divorce exception clause in it. Thank goodness!

So I think I will write to Pope Benedict and tell him about it. Somebody important with the authority to effect change needs to be made aware that this New Standard version is wrong and needs to be changed. Who better than the Pope? Who thinks his holiness will listen to little ole' me, though? I guess all I can do is write... but maybe tomorrow.