BIBLE INERRANCY TAKES ANOTHER HIT

I've noted before that the current text of the Bible as found in all extant translations is terribly flawed and today NPR did a story on how much the texts of the New Testament have been altered.

How Bible Stories Evolved Over The Centuries
by NPR Staff
July 17, 2011

Take the story of Christ's resurrection. As the gospel of Mark tells it, on the third day after the crucifixion, Jesus rose from the tomb and appeared to various people, including his disciples.

But Bill Warren, the professor leading the project, tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that in the original manuscripts for Mark, the story of Jesus visiting the disciples is nowhere to be found.

"We actually have more than one ending in the manuscripts, and then we have some with no ending," Warren explains, "So what we think probably happened there is that as soon as you see the other Gospels with the resurrection stories, early in the 2nd century at least, someone says, 'You know, we need to put some of this material into Mark to round it off better.' "

Warren points to another significant change in the gospel of John: In the earliest manuscripts, he says, John did not include Jesus challenging a mob that's about to stone a woman accused of adultery with the now-famous line: "Let any among you who is without sin cast the first stone."

The professor says that the story was probably inserted into the book of John somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd centuries.