The way religions were originally passed on was by word of mouth, an oral tradition. I call it telephone. Remember playing telephone in class? The teacher whispers something in a student's ear who then whispers it to the kid behind him until it goes around to the whole class and then they compare the final message to the original to see how incredibly and hilariously different they were?

Telephone was a very useful exercise for studying oral traditions but, not surprisingly, they don't teach you that in school. They simply teach it as a game and leave it to you later to see the significance of it.

One day in 6th grade, we played telephone in class. Some weeks before, our teacher, Mr. McAtee, read us a poem that contained the word "Squidgicumsqueeze." Of course, we all wanted to know what a squidgicumsqueeze was but he didn't know. He promised to find out and he'd let us know. Some weeks later, he found out but forgot to tell us. Then when he organized a session of telephone, he remembered and decided to reveal it to us that way. He whispered into the first student's ear, "A squidgicumsqueeze is really an Indian word for a mushroom." And it began making the rounds. The final form had morphed into, "A mushroom got Oscar."

We then had each kid say out loud exactly what he or she had heard whispered to them. The fourth kid somehow heard, "Oscar Ticket squeezed an Italian mushroom." But by the time it got to me--only 4 or 5 kids later--it had become "A mushroom bit Oscar." I turned around and whispered that to the kid behind me but he heard it as "A mushroom got Oscar" and that is how it stayed.

What I noticed was that the message was already completely changed by the 4th retelling (this gibes with what sociologists and behaviorists have noted as well--that a true story is a complete fiction by the 5th retelling). I also noticed that the message got garbled into something more complex than the original message but then quickly settled into something very simple and that this happened before even half the class had yet heard it. Once it settled into a very easy-to-remember sort of jingle--A mushroom got Oscar--it stayed that way.

Now let's say this was a religion and each kid represented a new generation hearing the story and then passing it on. Going from the last kid and tracing it back, it's going to be the same message for some 20 generations or so. So I imagine some researchers saying, "We've traced the story back 20 generations and it's still 'A mushroom got Oscar' and all the skeptics keep whining about a corrupted story! Certainly if it were corrupted, we'd have encountered variations by now!" And, of course, they'd be wrong!

Moreover, skeptics would demand to know who this Oscar was and how did a mushroom "get" him. Well, say the believers, this wasn't just any mushroom! This was a miraculous mushroom and it saved Oscar! By "get" the story implies that it saved or rescued him! All hail the Miraculous Mushroom! Churches are founded. The Church of the Miraculous Mushroom. Others would disagree and say it would be impossible to know what the ancients considered a mushroom and it wasn't the miraculous-ness that was so significant but rather its savior-like quality and so would settle for a more generic term--The Church of the Soteric Fungus.

But what was Oscar's relationship to the mushroom? Did they know each other prior to the rescue? What trouble was Oscar in and how exactly did the mushroom save him? Well, say the believers, one day Oscar was about to eat a poison mushroom and the Miracle Mushroom stopped him and said unto him, "Eat not this poison'd fungus of Satan but eat thou me instead and thou shalt live long and prosper." Yes, the mushroom gave his life that Oscar might live and all mankind with him!

Then one day, somebody finds an ancient manuscript that traced how the message was passed down revealing that the message was actually "A mushroom BIT Oscar." Now this is quite a quandary. Gone now is the freedom to interpret the mushroom's assumed soteriology and we must now confront a stark truth: the mushroom was a vampire! There is no nice way to dress up the biting aspect. If the mushroom bit Oscar then the mushroom was evil. There's no nice way to interpret something biting something else. But the followers of the savior mushroom won't let go that easily. They don't believe the biting episode, it never happened. The mushroom saved Oscar that's all there is to it. That manuscript is a fake and our experts can prove it!

"There was no Oscar!" say the skeptics. "There are no verifiable historical records of such a person much less the soterical mushroom!" If this Oscar existed, ask the skeptics, then what's his full name? Then someone else unearth's startling new evidence! A fragment of text reveals "Oscar Ticket [lacuna] -lian mushroom"!!! AHA!!! In your face, skeptics!!! Here we have once again an Oscar connected in some way to the mushroom. This time, though, we have a full name--OSCAR TICKET!!!! Hee-hee-hee!!! Chew on that one, skeptics!!!

But there are problems. The fragment implies that Oscar did something to the mushroom instead of the other way around. Not so, say others, the sentence could have read: "Oscar Ticket was saved by the [XXX]-lian mushroom." No, say yet others. the wording places Oscar in importance over the mushroom and everyone knows the mushroom is all important. Still, the skeptics--those one-trick ponies--won't give it up: "Historical records don't yield up any Oscar Ticket anywhere! We're no better off than when we started!" Oh, give it up, skeptics, first there was no full name then when we find one, you still won't accept it! Just give it a rest, will ya?

Then using expensive computer software, one team of researchers discover something stunning: right after where the fragment gives us the name of Oscar Ticket they can make out what appears to be an "s" followed by what might possibly be an "o."

Hmm. "Oscar Ticket s[o]...-lian mushroom." What does that mean?? Debate rages hotly back and forth! Then another team discovers a new development: there appears to be a tail on the "o" so it's not an "o" at all but an "a"! Oscar Ticket sa...-lian mushroom. Aha! Just as we suspected all along, say the religion's detractors, "sa" means "saved"! It was Oscar that saved the mushroom not the other way around! Your religion deliberately stole Oscar's glory and gave it to the mushroom and then hid all traces of its deception! Outrage!!! cry the followers--heresy!!!!

Then an amateur researcher says, "I don't think that's an 'a' at all. I think it's a 'q'. If it is, we have only a few related words that make any sense--squeezed, squished or squashed. As for the partial word, well, I think it's likely to be something along the lines of 'Anatolian,' 'Mongolian,' or 'Italian.'

The followers, detractors, researchers and even the skeptics raise their eyebrows in disbelief. "Oscar Ticket squashed an Anatolian mushroom--are you mad???" they cry. "No wonder you're only an amateur. Leave the debating to us professionals, you're clearly just a wannabe hack!"

As of this writing, the debate is still raging. A Wikipedia entry states, "Virtually all historians agree that the historical existence of Oscar Ticket is a near certainty. But the partial word describing what one amateur researcher speculated to be a reference to the mushroom's ethnicity or nationality is clearly fanciful."

More to follow as it develops.

Dang it, I thought this thread was going to be about psilocybin.
However, to your point, in the book Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Bart Ehrman states there are as many changes in the Bible as there are words in the Bible.

I read his book "The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture" many moons ago where he points out key corruptions that resulted in a new Jesus as a pre-existent son of god from the original ordinary human being that his followers believe was adopted by god. They originally believed it happened at the baptism but then a new school arose that believed it happened after this Jesus suffered an ordinary criminal's death. Jesus was not a pre-existent son of god but adopted by god later. It was quite a refreshing take. He seems to be less innovative a thinker now--Ehrman.

DB Roy wrote:The way religions were originally passed on was by word of mouth, an oral tradition. I call it telephone. Remember playing telephone in class? The teacher whispers something in a student's ear who then whispers it to the kid behind him until it goes around to the whole class and then they compare the final message to the original to see how incredibly and hilariously different they were?

LanDroid wrote:However, to your point, in the book Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Bart Ehrman states there are as many changes in the Bible as there are words in the Bible.

Ehrman is known for his telephone game argument though he applies it to the copying of texts rather than oral transmission.
A significant difference.
He also makes the kind of statistical numbers statement that Landroid quotes. When examined this can be seen for what it boils down in reality. Nothing remotely like what Ehrman's bare stat suggests. In fact when pressed Ehrman himself admits this.

For anyone interested in this subject, Ehrman debated textual critic Dan Wallace on the topic; Is the original New Testament lost?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg-dJA3SnTA