> In a way, Child's Ballad book is like the Bible. People pore over every word as if it comes from God Himself and seem to want to ignore the fact that, historically speaking, it has been heavily tampered with.

I've never come up against a serious researcher who treats Child in this way. Why would they? Could you name some of them?

"Heavily tampered with" implies fraud or at least irresponsibility. Child had his Victorian sensitivities, but he was neither a dilettante nor a fake.