I propose that, over time, only those versions of the Bible which were best suited for their environment at the time actually survived.
First there is the Sinaiticusan Age (note the date on the BBC article is from today), which contains the earliest fossil records of the Bible. The complete genetic Codex has now been put online thanks to a 165-year joint effort by countries Egypt, Russia, Germany and Britain!
This early ancestor of modern Bibles actually had two extra bones (Hermas and Barnabas) that are no longer in use today. No doubt, the anti-Semitic Barnabas bone apparently lost its usefulness over time and was replaced in function
Quoting from the last link (which was actually a link inside the first article).
Firstly, the Codex contains two extra books in the New Testament.
One is the little-known Shepherd of Hermas, written in Rome in the 2nd Century - the other, the Epistle of Barnabas. This goes out of its way to claim that it was the Jews, not the Romans, who killed Jesus, and is full of anti-Semitic kindling ready to be lit. "His blood be upon us," Barnabas has the Jews cry.
Discrepancies
Had this remained in subsequent versions, "the suffering of Jews in the subsequent centuries would, if possible, have been even worse", says the distinguished New Testament scholar Professor Bart Ehrman.
I'm no expert, but I have been to the Wartburg
to see where Martin Luther
translated the Bible from Greek to German. This Lutherian Age was a significant and unique milestone in Bible evolution- since everyday people (also known to past Popes under the term cannonfodder) were not well-versed in Greek, they could not decipher anything about it other than its shiny leather outer-skin texture and had to take whatever the sages of the time told them it said on face value. By translating it into German, the Bible once again adapted itself to its surroundings (and anyone who has done any form of lengthy official translation from one language to another will know that the act of translation is itself a form of evolution as "meaning" undoubtably gets lost and added all over the place). This time, its size shrank on two levels. On one level it shrank in the sense that "smaller people could now read it" and not just those in high towers. On another level it shrank literally:
As Luther was not fond of the Book of Revelation
Revelation is considered by some to be one of the most controversial and difficult books of the Bible, with many diverse interpretations of the meanings of the various names and events in the account. Protestant founder Martin Luther at first considered Revelation to be "neither apostolic nor prophetic" and stated that "Christ is neither taught nor known in it",[6] and placed it in his Antilegomena. John Calvin believed the book to be canonical, yet it was the only New Testament book on which he did not write a commentary.
these genes were not passed on to Bibles living in the East:
In the 4th century, Gregory of Nazianzus and other bishops argued against including this book in the New Testament canon, chiefly because of the difficulties of interpreting it and the danger for abuse.[8] Christians in Syria also reject it because of the Montanists' heavy reliance on it.[9] In the 9th century, it was included with the Apocalypse of Peter among "disputed" books in the Stichometry of St. Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople.[citation needed] In the end it was included in the accepted canon, although it remains the only book of the New Testament that is not read within the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The big question remains... when the next big epidemic comes, will Bibles living in the East be better prepared? Any Atheist who claims that the Bible is not a real book is wrong: in fact, it's just as real as any other book.
Update: Creationism
Update 2: Tower of Babel