2013/5/27 Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org>

(Aside: If Scientific Linux [sic] distributes such an old Emacs,
what other problems may be hiding in the distro? All of the main
distros keep up with Emacs releases with a lag of only a couple weeks.
Many provide a "bleeding edge" beta package as well. The evidence is
strong that Emacs is both a valuable package and one that is easy to
keep up to date. If Scientific Linux doesn't do so ....)

SL is more or less a copy of Red Hat where the latest release (6.4) includes Emacs 23.1, so that's one major distro that doesn't keep up with Emacs releases like that. But it also shows that the original poster has an old version of the distro, so nothing to worry about.