The Unavoidable Issues The text's length was far from the only issue for medieval monks charged with transcribing. Because all manuscripts were copied by hand, some type of human mistake has tainted them, whether it be word skipping (or even entire lines), misspellings, incorrect interpretations, or hypercorrections. For example, in an attempt to avoid saying "God," some medieval monks would spell the word "deus" instead. This kind of error can still be found in many modern translations of the Bible. Even after manuscripts were printed using lithography or another process, errors continued to be made. Some modern editions contain updates based on new knowledge about words' origins or meanings, but others may simply repeat mistakes made by those who first translated or printed the text. For this reason, there are often multiple versions of a single book available, each with its own set of flaws. Monks had no choice but to include lengthy passages that might not have been intended by their authors. Sometimes these are fragments of poems, stories, or songs that didn't make the final cut of the main text. Other times they're longer versions of existing works that were published separately and later incorporated into the main manuscript. Still other times they represent the efforts of different writers or editors who lived hundreds of years apart to address similar issues within the text. Regardless of the reason, these additions can greatly expand certain books while barely changing others.