Which Bible Translation Should I use?

There are some bad versions of the Bible. The one that always comes to my mind is the "Word on the Street Bible". Here's an example of how it begins the book of Genesis.

"First off, nothing . . . but God. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God says the word and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function – just darkness . . . total. And floating above it all, God’s Holy Spirit, ready to play... (Genesis 1:1-2)

It's hard for me to even describe how I feel about that...

There's also the Emoji Bible. So, yes, I think it does matter which Bible you use. Some groups have retranslated the Bible according to what their group already believes. The Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation (NWT) is an excellent example of this. They completely abuse the ancient languages and blatantly write their beliefs backward into the text, instead of adjusting their beliefs to what the text actually says. The NWT was translated by an anonymous group of JWs, so no one can actually be held accountable for this non-translation. Several sub-Christian groups have Bibles like this, that only their group uses and no one else. There are also translations like the Queen James Bible, whose editors also remained anonymous so that no one could be held accountable.

There are numerous versions of the Bible whose translators had an obvious agenda when they translated it. This should go without saying, but you should stay away from those kinds of translations. You don't want to read what someone thinks the Bible should have said, you want to know what the Bible actually does say, even if it offends you, especially if it offends you. Our primary goal should be to get a translation that is accurate to the original languages, so that we can know what was originally written by the ancient author, because we want to change our beliefs according to the intended meaning of scripture. This is the entire reason for reading and studying the Bible. We want to know exactly what it says!

There are two kinds of Bible translations, dynamic and formal equivalence. These two approaches will result in two different kinds of translation. Dynamic equivalence is meant to draw out the full meaning behind the text, formal is meant to be as literal as possible, and as strict to the original grammar as possible, while remaining readable.

For example, the New American Standard Bible (NASB) is formal,

and the New Living Translation (NLT) is dynamic.

Here's how they render the same verse.

"In those days they will not say again, 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children's teeth are set on edge.'" (Jeremiah 31:29 NASB)

"The people will no longer quote this proverb: 'The parents have eaten sour grapes, but their children's mouths pucker at the taste.'" (Jeremiah 31:29 NLT)

Formal equivalence simply translates the original idiom "teeth are set on edge" just how it appears in the original language. It's up to the reader to think about what's being said, even to study it, because this is not a 21st century English phrase. But the NLT translates it into a word that we understand easily, "pucker". This is not really what the text says, but it conveys the idea a little better to the modern reader.

So when choosing a Bible translation, this should be the first thing to think about. Do you want a more literal rendering, so you can get closer to the original, or do you want a less literal but more relatable rendering. Each has its benefits and flaws. Sometimes in a formal translation, the meaning can be missed because the reader doesn't understand something because it's so far removed from our current culture. There are things that you need to already be familiar with in order to understand. But the same can be true of a dynamic translation. The meaning can be missed because too much of the original is covered up with modern expressions which sometimes water it down as you go further and further away from the original and it becomes more and more "paraphrase". The best way around this issue is to use multiple translations.

I use Bible Gateway to open large passages, or whole chapters, and for doing word-searches in individual chapters, books, or the whole Bible, in one translation or several at a time. With Bible Gateway, you can open different translations side by side for easy comparison. Bible Hub is great for looking at one verse at a time, in every translation all in a row. Here's our Jeremiah 31:29 example.

I also like to use Blue Letter Bible for deeper study. This is where I look when I want to go beyond the English and see the original language. For someone like me, who is just an everyday Christian, not a scholar or a professor, not an expert in the languages, this is about as deep as I can get. When I do a Bible study and find myself examining a Greek or Hebrew word, this is the tool I'm using.

So those are the tools I like to use when I study the Bible. There are certainly more tools available, but I tend to use these three 95% of the time. As for me personally, when I just read the Bible, I read the NASB. The ESV is also very popular as a formal equivalence because it's a bit more readable than the NASB in some ways. The NIV is the most popular dynamic equivalence. If I want to look at the dynamic, I usually look to the NIV because although I don't like the way it translates some things, it doesn't go as far afield as others do.

Thanks for reading. God bless.

#scripture #Bibletranslations #WhichBibletranslation #Bibleversions