At least, that's what I thought. Didn't that whole thing get settled in the fourth century?

Apparently I'm wrong. World Magazine has an article by Gene Veith that mentions a Bible version called The Inclusive Bible. Veith (who seems rightly horrified by the Inclusive Bible) writes:

The Inclusive Bible follows the higher critics in leaving out the Pastoral Epistles and Revelation, and it follows The Da Vinci Code in including instead the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas. This translation is endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the evangelical leader Tony Campolo.

I guess the editors still view the canon debate as open. So why not drop out Hebrews too? I mean, we don't really know who wrote it. And while we're at it, let's drop Jude out too. I mean, c'mon, it quotes Enoch and it is really kind of weird to boot. Can't we just get rid of 'em?

Yes, folks, that is sarcasm. I guess it was just too hard to make the Pastoral Epistles "inclusive" so they figured they'd drop the whole lot. You can argue all you want about Pauline authorship; I'd contend that matter is certainly not at the point where removal from the canon should be considered. In the area of canon, with established books, doubt on the part of some should not lead to outright dismissal of the book. (This is inclusivity?)

Makes me wonder what they did with the shorter & longer endings of Mark. Or John 7.58-8.11. Or 1Jn 5.7-8. I mean, you know, stuff that is really uncertain from a bona-fide text-critical point of view. Did they drop those passages too? Or are they OK because they don't have any "inclusivity" issues?

How is it "inclusive" for this edition to remove books from the canon like this?

Update (2005-11-03): Thanks to prodding from a ricoblog reader and some curiosity of my own, I did a little searching for more information on this. I can't find any listing for something called The Inclusive Bible that fits Veith's description. The closest I can find (thanks for the pointer, John) is a listing at AltaMira Press. This seems to be equivalent with a translation by "Priests for Equality" mentioned earlier (and uncited by me) in Veith's article.

Is there such a translation as the one Veith describes? If so, and if you know the publisher and can point me to a page that describes the contents and philosophy of the translation, I'd be appreciative. Until then, I apologize for the noise. Thanks!