Last week, I tried to help the Dallas Morning News fix some incorrect biblical information in its newspaper.
And as the folks who know how to get clicks on social media like to say: You won't believe what happened next!
Really, you won't. Or maybe you will.
Short version: The Dallas newspaper attempted to fix its mistake online (with no note to readers) and even ran a Page 3 correction in its printed newspaper. But I apparently didn't explain the error well enough because the corrected story is still wrong eight days later. So I'm going to try again.
But first, let's back up and catch up everybody on the background.
My original post explained to the Dallas newspaper — which used to have full-time religion writers but obviously does not anymore — that the Bible contains two books of Timothy and that Peter didn't write them:
This was the original Dallas Morning News paragraph with which I took issue:
In another video he posted Wednesday morning, Jeffress pointed to the Book of Timothy, where Peter instructed Christians to pray for all leaders. He tweeted that he would have the same message if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency.
And, as I pointed out, here's what Jeffress (that would be Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas) actually said:
In his first letter to Timothy, Paul made it clear that we're to pray for all those who are in authority. And no matter how you feel about the outcome of this election, I hope you'll join me in praying for my friend President-elect Donald Trump.
So after apparently reading our post (I say "apparently" because the Dallas Morning News didn't reply directly to us but acted soon after we started tweeting about the error), the newspaper rewrote the incorrect paragraph online.
And the paper ran this correction in the printed newspaper the next day:
In a Sunday story about local faith leaders' reactions to the presidential election, a reference to the book of Timothy should have specified it was from Paul's first letter to Timothy.
But does anyone who has spent time in Sunday school still see a problem with the article as it remains right now?:
In another video he posted Wednesday morning, Jeffress pointed to Paul's first letter to Timothy, where Peter instructed Christians to pray for all leaders. He tweeted that he would have the same message if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency.
Here's the deal, Dallas Morning News editors: Peter does not belong in that paragraph. At all. You didn't need to just add Paul as the letter's writer. You needed to take out Peter entirely.
There's still time to do so before Thanksgiving. Enjoy the holidays!
P.S. As I noted in the original post's comments, a few folks on social media referenced scholars who claim that a Christian other than Paul wrote 1 and 2 Timothy. From a personal standpoint, I believe that Paul wrote it. From a journalistic standpoint, sure, it would be fine for the Dallas Morning News to couch its reference to the authorship in terms that reflect that debate. But first, the newspaper has to get past its elementary-level biblical illiteracy.