Which Bible Should I Use?

The bottom line is, read one you like. Almost any Bible is better than none. Some are better for reading and some are better for Bible study. Using more than one version for Bible study is very useful. However, some are deliberately false and should not be used. If the fact that there are different translations available is a stumbling block to you, I would highly recommend you read the book "The Case For Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus" by Lee Strobel. And I mean the book, not the movie. While the movie is inspiring, it focuses on the biography of Lee Strobel. Whereas the book presents the evidence he found. If reading is not your thing, the audio version is available and most public libraries either have it or can get it.

Some people take personal offense when their chosen version is questioned. I do not wish to cause offense or start a battle. I only wish to explain the differences and the logical reasons to choose a version. And I won't shy away from the truth for the sake of someone's feelings, especially about something so important. But as long as you aren't the type to fight about your version over another, don't create a doctrine based on how things are worded only in your translation, and don't use a fake version, it's not that important which one you use.

The only completely literal versions of the Bible are in Greek and Hebrew. Words, phrases, and grammar do not translate directly. For example, a word may have several meanings in English, but only one in Greek. Or a word may be a verb and a noun in English, but only a noun in Hebrew. In English it is word order that determines the verb, adjectives and other parts of speach that apply to a subject or object. "The boy threw the ball to the dog" doesn't mean the same as "the boy threw the dog to the ball". But in Greek grammar words that refer to each other are identified by their case endings. Thus they can be separated to opposite ends of the sentence for emphasis, but there is no doubt what verb refers to what noun. And Hebrew uses compound words among other things that are challenging to translate.

There are five methods of creating a legitimate English language version of the Bible. Each translation of the Bible uses one of these as their guiding philosophy. However, that doesn't mean they stick to it for every verse. There is always some crossover using other philosophies, especially in awkward or difficult to translate verses.

• Interlinear - An interlinear takes the Hebrew and Greek texts and puts the English equivalent word above the original languages word. These are a poor choice without some knowledge of Greek and Hebrew grammar as they are not word order dependent like English is. They should always be used with a good English translation. An alternative is the Reverse-Interlinear. In this, an English translation has the original language word above the English word. This prevents misinterpretation from word order and still facilitates digging into the original languages, especially when coupled with a good lexicon that lists specific verses under each contextual meaning of the word.
• Essentially Literal - In this philosophy the aim is to stick to the original structure and wording as closely as possible. Changes are only when necessary for proper English. This is the method used in all English translations prior to 1950. In my Greek classes this was the expected translation method. In my Hebrew classes it was the same, but there was more overlap with Dynamic Equivalence.
• Dynamic Equivalent - Recently relabeled as functional equivalence, in this philosophy the aim is to convey the meaning of the original author. But the translation team is free to change the structure and wording as they see fit. This is often referred to as thought-for-thought translation. It is a valid translation philosophy, but the reader is putting more faith in the opinion of the translators than first two philosophies. The majority of new translations since 1950 use this method, and nearly all translations that aren't in English, German or French.
• Natural Language - This translation philosophy does actually translate from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. And the translators put the meaning in natural language, which means a large amount of wording must be added that isn't found in Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. However, these usually make the main point of a verse easy to understand, although this is sometimes at the expense of the sub-points. Thus the accuracy is lower than the first three. These are useful and accessible for new Christians. But they can be problematic as a sole text for Bible study.
• Paraphrase - Primarily, this is where someone has taken a non-Hebrew or Greek translation, and reworded it. Often there is little or no reference to Hebrew or Greek texts to check for accuracy. Thus there is a natural tendency for error and inaccuracy, like playing the telephone game where there is no checking for accuracy with the originator of the message.

Regardless of the primary translation philosophy, all translation from one language to another requires the translator to make choices on how to best relay the true meaning. That's why reputable translations are done by teams of experts in the original languages and culture of the time. Today they have access to over 5,800 manuscripts of the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew. In addition, the Middle East has been multilingual for thousands of years, especially during the time the New Testament was written. So there are countless documents that had be written in multiple languages that can be used to better understand the Greek and Hebrew of that time, such as government decrees and laws, legal documents, contracts, reports, educational material, sermons, memoirs, and even recipes. These are used as a cross-reference increasing the accuracy of translation. Thus we can have confidence in the legitimate translations of the Bible.

Legitimate Bible Translations

These versions are legitimate translations of the Bible. The translators were trying to be faithful to the original Greek and Hebrew texts, and convey the meaning to a modern English audience. Any of these is a good choice for reading or Bible study. Some have advantages for specific purposes. But the most important thing is to use one that you are comfortable with. For Bible study it is useful to refer to more than one. Parallel Bibles have two or more translations side by side making this easy to do. Bible software makes this easy to set up as well. And some Bible websites support parallel display.

AMP Amplified Bible - This is an Essentially Literal translation with annotated additional words for clarity. This is an excellent version to use for Bible study without learning the original languages. But it isn't a good version to just read until you get used to it. The additional words are clearly marked as additions, as well as the type of additions, to separate them from directly translated text. Words added for proper English are put in italics. Keywords added to convey the meaning are placed in brackets. Words that amplify, that is, clarify and specify the meaning of the previous word are placed in parenthesis. It is the most accurate English translation, but the format that is so helpful in conveying the meaning so accurately makes it distracting to just read.

NASB95 New American Standard Bible 1995 - This is an Essentially Literal translation. This is a great version to use for Bible study as it is the most accurate to and more closely follows the structure of the original languages, but it can be less easy to just read. Additionally, the NASB translations have several annotation features that enhance the accuracy in their use. Direct quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament are put in small caps. If a word in the New Testament text is an addition or change from the Old Testament quote, that word is left in normal text. This makes it easy to see where original quotes are with accuracy and where the paraphrases occur. Words that have been added are put in italics. Most of the time this is for proper English. Other languages don't have the rules we have, such as the use of "the". And there are things that can be implied in Greek and other languages so the reader in that language will understand the meaning, while in English it has to be explicit. Another feature is that verbs where the tense doesn't match the original text exactly have an asterisk "*" next to them. In Greek, one can use a different tense than is proper in English. Plus there are verb tenses in Greek that don't exist in English. Lastly, brackets "[]" surround text that may not be in the original text, but appears commonly in most manuscripts. This the most accurate regular English version currently available.

ESV English Standard Standard - This is an Essentially Literal translation. This is a very good version to use for Bible study, and it is easy to read as well. Yet it is has a very high accuracy with the original languages. It is highly regarded in academic circles and is the newest translation that is approved for use in most seminaries.

NASB New American Standard Bible 2020 - This is an Essentially Literal translation. This is a very good version to use for Bible study, and it is easy to read as well. Yet it is very accurate with the original languages. It is the latest version of the NASB, and was made to be more readable than the 1995 version. As a result it is a little less directly in line with the structure of the original languages than the 1995. It shares the annotation features of the NASB95 which enhance the accuracy of using it. It is a very reliable translation with very high accuracy.

NKJV New King James Version - This is an Essentially Literal translation. This is a very good version to use for Bible study, and it is easy to read as well. It was translated in the tradition of the KJV. Like the original KJV, it is translated into the current English at the time of translation. Unlike the original KJV, the entire Bible is translated using original language manuscripts for the entire Bible. It is a very reliable translation with high accuracy.

NIV New International Version (2011) - This is a Dynamic Equivalent translation. This is a good version to use for Bible study, and it is very easy to read as well. It's easy flow makes this one of the best, or possibly the best English version for just reading. This is the most accurate of the Dynamic Equivalent translations. It is a reliable translation with good accuracy.

NRSV New Revised Standard Version - This is an Essentially Literal translation. This is a good version to use for Bible study, and it is easy to read as well. It an updated version of the RSV of 1947, 1952 and 1971, with updates to modern English. This is an early adopter of inclusive, (not woke,) language. (Although they are careful not to be gender neutral with the Trinity.) For example where the translators felt "brothers" meant men and women they substituted "brothers and sisters." It is a reliable translation with good accuracy.

NLT New Living Translation - This is a Natural Language translation. This is a good version for new believers as it usually makes the main point of a passage easy to see and understand. As people become mature Christians they ought to graduate to a more dependable translation. And while it is good for Bible study, even as a newbie Christian it would be a good idea to pair it with another translation as the full meaning of a passage can be difficult to see. Like all Natural Language versions, a lot of text is added that does not come from the original language manuscripts. It is accurate with the gospel message and basic Christianity. It is by a huge margin the most accurate of the Natural Language translations, by 200% or more. It is a good translation for newbies to use and the only Natural Language translation I can recommend.

RSV Revised Standard Version - This is an Essentially Literal translation. This is an acceptable version to use for Bible study, and is acceptable for reading, but a more recent version would be better. The language is out of date which can be a burden. It an updated version of the ASV, American Standard Version of 1901, and was replaced by the NRSV. It is a reliable translation with reliable accuracy, but can be misunderstood.

KJV King James Version - This is a hybrid of an Essentially Literal translation with large sections that are a Paraphrase. The original was published in 1611, and the most common version used today was revised in 1769. The translators were commissioned to translate the Bible into the common language of England at that time, thus giving the common man a Bible in his own modern language. (Modern then, archaic to us.) Because of that the KJV is in a foreign language to Americans of the 21st century. There are hundreds of words that aren't in our language. But those can be looked up. The real difficulty is that there are many words that look the same as our English, but mean something completely different in King James English. Except for the language barrier it is a good version to use. But without learning King James English, one is likely to misunderstand what is really being said, or completely miss the point entirely. In a Bible study with a leader using the KJV, he did bring up many sound biblical truths, but none of them were actually from the chapter being studied. Clearly, not understanding the foreign language of King James English was a problem. And if learning another language is an option, why not learn Greek and skip the middleman?
There is a misperception that the KJV is the most accurate English translation, but this is demonstrably incorrect. First, the KJV translators only had 7 or 8 manuscripts to work from. Today we have access to over 5,800, with thousands being older than those the KJV translators had. (Older does not necessarily mean better, but they are important.) And there were entire books of the Bible those manuscripts didn't cover. The cross-border academic sharing of today was unheard of then. The majority of manuscripts available at the time, (which is a small fraction of what we have now,) were in the possession of the Roman Catholic church. And they were not about to share them with the "rebellious protestants" in England. So the gaps were filled in by paraphrasing from the Latin Vulgate, (a Roman Catholic translation of the Bible into Latin.) The Latin Vulgate's Old Testament was a paraphrase of the Septuagint, a Greek language translation of Hebrew Old Testament. Thus large sections of the KJV are a paraphrase of a translation, or a paraphrase of a paraphrase of a translation of the original languages. This is not meant to anger those who are KJV only, but these are verified historical facts.

TLB The Living Bible - This is paraphrase of the KJV by Dr. Kenneth Taylor, first published in 1971. This is an inaccurate version and is not good for Bible study or reading. The purpose was to update the wording of the KJV to common American English of that time. As such it suffers from the inaccuracies of the paraphrase process, a lack of understanding of King James English by Dr. Taylor, and the inaccuracies inherent in the KJV.

GNT Good News Translation - This is a Natural Language translation. This is a bad version to use for Bible study, and is bad for reading because it contradicts central gospel points. The language is very simplified English, which makes it easy to understand by children. This made it popular with evangelists like Billy Graham decades ago. But there are better versions available since then, and a really good one is the NLT. Making it easy to understand took priority over accuracy, leading to distortions even to things central to the gospel like the divinity of Jesus and salvation. All references to Jesus' blood and hell were removed. If not for the contradictions to the gospel, this would have been a decent version for reading.

CEV Contemporary English Version - This is a Natural Language translation. This is a bad version to use for Bible study, and is bad for reading because it contradicts central gospel points. It is done by the same people who did the GNT, but they further simplified the English. It is even worse than the GNT. The translation of many verses is so bad they are made confusing and illogical, not to mention unbiblical. This is a source of confusion on the Trinity as the CEV wrongly rewords verses to say that the Holy Spirit replaces Jesus. This shouldn't be used.

Deliberately False "Bibles"

These versions are deliberately false translations of the Bible. The "translator(s)" have little or no regard for being faithful to the original Greek and Hebrew texts. Usually, these are for the purposes of supporting anti-biblical and heretical beliefs. Often, but not always, these are the product of cults and are edited to match their false claims.

TPT The Passion Translation - This is a deliberately false bible by one person, Brian Simmons. It is not a translation as the title claims, but is a highly edited Paraphrase. Simmons has added so much unbiblical text it is 50% longer. In using it, people are putting their trust in Simmons. But it is easy to prove he is a liar. He claims to have been a translator in the mission field, translating the Bible into the local language. Ethnos360 has refuted this. He was not a translator, but was one of those who would take translated passages to the natives and report back what they said they were reading in the new translation. Essentially, he was a gopher for the accuracy checkers. He claims repeatedly that one of the secrets that was revealed to him was Hebrew is a homonymic language, and the secret to translating Hebrew is homonyms. Even non-bible scholars can look up "homonym" in a dictionary app and see that these are words that have the same sound or spelling, but have different meanings. In other words, Simmons is claiming that dad-jokes are a valid translation method. He has claimed that the original New Testament was written in Aramaic, and there is currently a wave of change happening in academia as they turn to the Aramaic texts they had discarded. However, no such wave exists because there are no New Testament Aramaic texts. None. Not even ones that were produced hundreds of years later. (There are 350 manuscripts of scripture translated into Syriac hundreds of years after the original Greek texts. Syriac is related to Aramaic, but only as much as French is related to Spanish. And these manuscripts have been used by real translation scholars long before Simmons was born.) Not to mention the illogic of writing in Aramaic to people who don't understand it. There is no way Paul would have written the letter to the Romans in Aramaic. That would make as little sense as us writing to Norwegians in Japanese. And it is incomprehensible that Paul would have written to the Galatians in Aramaic because they would have to depend on the Judaizers to translate for them, and the Judaizers were the people Paul was writing against. Simple analysis of the TPT shows it was created by using an online interlinear with Strongs Lexicon, (an unacceptably weak, but free lexicon,) by an amateur without even the most basic understanding of Greek or Hebrew. Even comparing his own statements from one appearance to another shows he contradicts himself completely. Simmons claims to have had special revelation directly from God all the time. But when a person has been proven a liar over and over on things we know, I would never trust them on claims we cannot verify.
But don't just take my word for it. You can read the papers of legitimate scholars that are experts in a book of the Bible reviewing the TPT's text of that book, and hear them speak about it at What Is Wrong With The Passion "Translation".

Matthew 7:15-16 Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?

TNIV Today's New International Version - This is rewording of the NIV by the publishers of the NIV. It has been withdrawn by the publishers themselves. It is not good for Bible study or reading. It received almost universal criticism, which it rightly deserved. This was an attempt at hyper-inclusive language to the extent that it altered the meaning of the text. This was not nuance, but was easily seen by almost anyone. And there were other problems. There are still copies around, but it should be avoided.

RDB Reader's Digest Bible - This is a paraphrase by the secular Reader's Digest. They removed 55% of the Old Testament and 25% of the New Testament. Ironically, they removed Revelation 22:19 which warns against "taking away from the words of this prophecy." There is not even an attempt at being accurate with scripture here. The end result is clearly a distortion.

MSG The Message - This is paraphrase by Eugene Peterson. This is a highly inaccurate version and is not good for Bible study or reading. It deliberately uses slang language in an attempt to be relatable. But Peterson handles scripture in a manner that seems so casual and off-hand it's as if he didn't care what scripture actually says. Clearly meaning was sacrificed for the sake of being "relatable". Even the publisher put a disclaimer on it.

NWT New World Translation - This is a deliberately falsified "bible" by the Jehovah's Witnesses, based on the King James Version. It has been modified to support their anti-biblical beliefs. Ironically, in the version I read they left in verses that contradict one of their central beliefs, that Christ returned secretly or invisibly in 1914.

Matthew 24:23 Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There He is,' do not believe him.

JST Joseph Smith Translation - This is a deliberately falsified "bible" by Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism. It is based on the King James Version. However, it is not even used by Mormons. They use the KJV, although they do say the KJV is corrupted and the Book of Mormon is correct when they contradict each other. Among the changes Smith made was to add a fake addition to the end of Genesis that prophesied about him.

TMB The Mirror Bible - This is a deliberately falsified "bible" by Francois Du Toit. It replaces the real gospel message with a feel-good message that is blatantly anti-gospel and anti-Christian. This is even worse than the fakes made by cults.

There are many other English versions of the Bible out there than are listed here. These are the most commonly used legitimate translations and fraudulent translations. When it comes to legitimate translations, the important thing is that we each have one we will read. We get nothing from a Bible on a shelf.

If anyone is interested, for my own Bible study and reading I primarily use the NASB95 New American Standard Bible 1995, the AMP Amplified Bible, the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia Hebrew Old Testament, and a few reliable commentaries like the World Biblical Commentary and the New International Commentary. But commentaries aren't scripture and aren't always written by Christians. I also refer to the ESV, NIV, NKJV, NLT, and NRSV. As a trained Bible scholar, I have 26 versions I consider valuable to study, and 17 more I consider out of date or obsolete, 2 Hebrew Bible versions and 5 Greek Bible versions. And my printed parallel Bible is a NASB95-AMP Bible.

I like the NASB95 for it's high accuracy. And since it's structure closely matches the original languages it makes it easy when going back and forth between Greek or Hebrew and English. But I sometimes find another translation puts things in a way that better conveys the meaning of the original language than the NASB95. So I keep those translations open as well during my study time. I use the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia Hebrew Old Testament because they are the gold-standard of manuscript compilations, and have the best annotations.

Relevent Bible Verses:

Proverbs 30:5-6 - Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar.

Revelation 22:18-19 - I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.

Deuteronomy 4:2 - You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.

2 Timothy 3:16 - All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

Galatians 1:6-9 - I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

Matthew 24:24 - For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.