There are many fundamentalists who would have people believe the modern Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God. These are the same people who want to force "creationism" on the world, among other ideas such as a 6,000 year-old Earth, and the co-existence of mankind with dinosaurs. Biblical inspiration can be debated, but it now seems certain that the modern Bible contains many changes, or "mistakes".
The world's oldest surviving version of the Bible is the Codex Sinaiticus. It dates back to the fourth century, and has been hidden intact in St. Catherine's Monastery since that time. It was rediscovered in the 19th century, and now parts of it reside in four different countries -- Egypt, Germany, Russia and Great Britain.
The Codex is now in the process of being digitized and will be put on the internet for anyone concerned to read. The Problem? In addition to two extra books (Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas), there are thousands of differences between the Codex and the modern Bible.
Most troubling for those claiming biblical inerrancy, is the differences between this earliest text and modern texts of books contained in the modern Bible. How could an inspired and inerrant book have changed so much over the centuries? The changes (or mistakes) are obviously manmade (for the only other option is that an infallible god had to correct his own mistakes by putting out a revised edition).
Some of the big changes between the Codex and the modern Bible are:
-The Codex does not mention the ascension of Jesus into heaven, or contain any mention of his resurrection.
-The Codex does not include the story of the adulterous woman about to be stoned (the "let him without sin cast the first stone" story).
-The Codex does not have Jesus saying "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" from the cross.
These are just three of thousands of differences between the Codex and modern texts. Obviously, the earliest versions of the Bible did not fit the religion being taught, so it was changed by scribes to fit it better. The modern Bible is not "inerrant". It is simply the latest version of the stories.
Maybe the fundamentalists would be better served to explain these "mistakes", before they try to force their own self-righteous beliefs on the rest of us.
