Random The Original Bible Is Drastically Different From Version You Grew Up With (14 items)

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  (#12) Mark Blends The Greatest Hits Of Other Stories To Create A Cohesive Narrative About Jesus

  Up until the early 20th century, Mark was considered to be the most historically accurate version of the events of Jesus' life, but between 1901 and 1919, two different historians, William Wrede and Karl Ludwig Schmidt, showed that Mark was a theological construct that had been rebuilt with variant verses to form the best theological version of events.

  One of the biggest clues that the story was too good to be true was the idea that so many of Jesus' classic stories could be tied together in such a clean narrative. Biblical historians prior to the 20th century either ignored this fact or they simply didn't want to recognize that the story had been heavily altered and edited after its initial writing in order to tell a more coherent story. 
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  (#5) No One Can Make Up Their Mind About Tobit

  Of all the books that have been edited out of the Old Testament, the Book of Tobit stands out for the tale it tells. Initially, this story of a marriage that helped capture a demon was left out of the Biblical canon because of its late authorship. Recently, however, scholars have its omission was because Raguel, the bride's father, wrote the story's marriage document instead of the bridegroom, as was required by Jewish rabbinical law.

  It's worth noting that the Midrash Bereishit Rabbah, a commentary on the book of Genesis written around 400 CE, contains a summary of the Book of Tobit—so it's not like no one knew about this book until they read it in the Dead Sea Scrolls. 
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  (#8) The Non-Confrontational Jesus In The Gospel Of John Was Probably Added Later

  Whether you're a believer or not, you probably know the phrase, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." It's one of Jesus' most quoted lines. But are those his words? In 2007, when studying New Testament manuscripts, Dallas Theological Seminary professor Daniel Wallace noticed that the memorable story of Jesus defending an adulterous woman was missing from the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. Many Bible scholars agree that these verses (usually found in John 7:53-8:11) are not original to John's Gospel. Those words were added sometime around the 5th century.

  There is debate as to whether this story should still be considered Scripture at all. On one hand, all of the stories about Jesus began orally, and this story could have actually occurred only to be written down much later. On the other hand, this story causes problems for scholars trying to draw the line between what should be considered canonical text and what shouldn't. 
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  (#7) We Should Probably Throw Luke Out Since It's Such A Pieced-Together Amalgamation

  Though there's no book in the Bible that hasn't been severely edited, there may not be one that's as inconsistent in its revisions as Luke. Today, we know Luke is actually an amalgamation of the Western and the Alexandrian versions of the text. To further complicate matters, a third version of Luke exists that was written by a 2nd-century heretic who made his own version of Luke that somehow got mixed into the scripture.
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  (#11) Mary Might Not Be A Virgin Anymore Thanks To Changes From 2011

  One of the most significant changes to the Bible in the 21st century was a simple line of text that heavily alters the idea of Jesus' immaculate conception. In 2011, the New American Bible changed “The virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel,” to "The young woman shall be with child."

  It seems like this could create all kind of trouble for the story of Jesus and his holy birth, but a representative for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops told Time Magazine, "It doesn’t mean the bishops are changing their mind on the virgin birth of Jesus or the perpetual virginity of Mary. That doctrine stands, and will probably stand until the end of time.” 
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  (#10) The Resurrection Is Different Now Than When It Was First Written

  As the Gospel of Mark tells it, after Jesus was crucified, he lay in his tomb for three days, woke up, then visited with his disciples before ascending to heaven. But Bill Warren, a professor from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, believes that this ending was added to Mark sometime around the 2nd century, whereas the original gospel was written around 50 CE.

  According to Warren at least, the reasoning behind this addition was to make it better match the other Gospels. Warren explained to NPR, "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.'"

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