No you are correct Frybabe - there is a book all about it - God's Secretaries by Nicolson I believe is the author - along with so much written in various books about how the Bible was altered just in the hand copying and how there are some parables in the bible that were added along the margins by monks copying the text . Later texts included these parables as if part of the original - Some bibles have pages repeated and others have pages never copied.
There are collections of Bibles from the dark ages and the Medieval time that are used as comparisons - When the canon of the Bible was determined no Bibles written by women could be included - Bibles in the first century was a genera as today we have literature and science and history etc. the Bible was a genera -
And the big one - the raging quarrel was if Jesus was God or Man or both - most heretics were so labeled because they came down on one side or the other rather than Jesus being both God and Man pushed by the Roman Catholics - that was the basics of the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Church. This battle was included in every council of Bishops since Council of Chalcedon in 451 and not fully settled as dogma till The Council of Trent in 1545
Many of the early 'Christian' Bibles came down on one side or the other - as did the Gnostic Bible and therefore not included in the canon - the choices are neatly explained by the Church (until you take Bible History) as various Bible Books fell out of favor and therefore, were not included - also, there was a rule that the new Testament Bibles had to be written by someone who knew Jesus or heard the stories directly from someone who knew Jesus - they really do not know who wrote Matthew, Mark and Luke - they chose the names so to fit the rules set up - they do not include John in that group but then John wrote some 70 years after the death of Jesus.
Then a few professors today bring to our attention that the first of the New Testament was written two years after the Romans sacked Jerusalem destroying to the ground the major temple in Jerusalem - they liken that to someone, a native of NY writing 2 years after 9/11 and the kind of message they could share.
And then, church history shows how over and over as various areas were converted, often by the leadership or the ruler, the church became entwined with local customs, attitudes toward women, their pagan beliefs. Therefore, when a Bible was translated the mind set of the translator had a colloquial slant that they see various choice of words during the translation were not the best in order to be true to the original but rather, reflected the view of the story or what was considered Christian by those doing the translating.
Many many books on all of this not written by crack pots but distinguished scholars, priests, ministers, and respected collage professors - The Teaching Company alone has several college level courses on the Bible both New and Old, and every aspect of Church history seems to have a series of at least 21 lectures available.
