There are a plethora of different versions of the Bible available today. I used to hear people decry this as somehow getting away from the good ole days of the King James Version. I don’t hear this as much any more. I’ll never forget one of my fellow students at Asbury when we were working on our Master of Divinity degrees who received an appointment to a small local church and upon meeting with the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee was asked, “Son, what Bible do you carry?”
To which he responded, “I’m kind of partial to the King James Version.” Which is exactly the answer his inquisitor desired. Then, my colleague made a trip to the book store and purchased a copy of the King James Version!
The King James Version is a beautiful example of Elizabethan English. That’s part of the problem. No one speaks Elizabethan English. The Bible was composed, especially the New Testament, in an everyman’s language, language that was easily understood at the time. No one talks like the KJV sounds. I find it ironic that the Pilgrims, who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, refused to use the King James Version of 1611 because it was too new. Another major problem with the KJV is that the version of the Greek New Testament on which it is based is vastly inferior to the version available to us today.
We are blessed with a wide variety of translations, editions, and paraphrases from which to choose. This is good and bad. Good, because no single translation, no matter how scholarly, is perfect. No translation of any document into another language is ever perfect, that is the nature of translation. So, having multiple English language translations is helpful in understanding the meaning of the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. It’s bad simply because with so many translations it can be confusing as to which one to use when.
Here’s my philosophy. Pick one for your main translation, but choose multiple other translations for study. My main translation, for some time now, has been the New Revised Standard Version. It is, hands down, the choice of the vast majority of Biblical scholars. However, it is not a perfect translation. My main beef is the choice of how to translate bar enash (son of man) in the Old Testament, particularly the instances in Daniel. The reason is detailed and technical, but it boils down to the spiritual meaning invested in “son of man” in the intertestamental literature on which Jesus picks up in using it as a title for himself in a way that is clearly indicative of his claim to divinity. Again, there’s a bunch of stuff here that is important but I don’t have time to discuss. The translation committee of the NRSV got it way wrong and this is very unfortunate, because overall it is an excellent translation.
The most popular English translation is the New International Version (NIV). Overall this is a great translation and the one I cut my Bible-reading teeth on when I was in high school and college. It is easy to read and accurate. However, it is showing its age and there are several technical difficulties and misleading passages. They have attempted a number of overhauls that are making it a better translation, though, and I think the latest (2011) has made big strides, although I haven’t read it, yet.
A really good newer translation is the English Standard Version (ESV). I like it because it is technically very accurate and it maintains some of the more poetic nuances of the King James Version. The only real problem with the ESV is in readability. It is written on about an eleventh grade level and it can be so technical, meaning that if follows the word order and grammar of the original language so closely, that it makes it a little difficult to read. I find myself re-translating or paraphrasing because it is so difficult to read at times. For a several years, this was my main translation.
The three above are good, solid, standard English translations. The next few are more dynamic and flowing, perhaps easier to read, but not as technically correct in a word-for-word sense.
My favorite of this style is the New Living Translation (NLT). The NLT was originally an attempt to take the easy-going paraphrase The Living Bible acceptable from a more scholarly standpoint. It is a thorough translation that is quite accessible and readable. It is a very dynamic translation and written on in an easy-to-read style.
The Message is a paraphrase developed by Eugene Peterson over the period of many years. He began with the New Testament, then expanded to the rest of the Bible because of its popularity. He strives to put the Bible into everyday idiom and he adds his special perspective and twist. This is a paraphrase, meaning it is not a translation at all. However, Peterson did his homework and in many cases does bring out a nuanced vision of what the original writer intended in the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek.
The Today’s English Version (TEV), also known as the Good News Bible (GNB), was originally published as Good News for Modern Man in 1969 (New Testament only). Growing up, I saw this Bible a lot. I remember particularly liking the art style of the drawings. The translation, itself, is fairly dynamic. It was the first place I saw the Beatitudes translated as “Happy are they…” Perhaps this was the genesis of my current research interest?? This has perhaps seen it’s more popular period as it was used by Billy Graham in his crusades in the 1970s. But it remains a solid translation that is easy to read.
There are many more that I use, but these are the most important examples. Having different translations is a blessing, overall, because they bring together the work of so many different scholars with various theories of how best to make sense of ancient languages in the modern world. I hope this was helpful to you.