Translations
One complaint about choosing a Bible translation is that so many exist that it seems impossible to know which are good and which are bad. I’ll agree that some translations are better than others, but for the most part the differences are not that some are “good” and others are “bad”, but that some are good for one purpose and others are good for a different purpose. A useful guideline is to use a colloquial (the way people talk in normal conversation) translation for your leisurely reading but a literal (says the same as the original, word-for-word) translation for detailed study.
Translations run on a spectrum, from highly literal to highly paraphrased. Those that are highly literal are called formally equivalent, and they pass on the difficulty of interpretation to the reader. Those that are more paraphrased but still stick pretty close to the text are called dynamically equivalent or sometimes functionally equivalent, and they try to find equivalent concepts in English. Those that are highly paraphrased are called free translations, or more accurately paraphrases, and they try to bring maximum clarity by using additional words not found in the original text. There is not an official scale or rating system, but here is a basic gist. If you’re wondering about a specific translation, see what it’s closest to on this list.
Formally equivalent…
- New American Standard Bible
- King James Version
- New King James Version
Between formally and functionally equivalent…
- Revised Standard Version
- New Revised Standard Version
- English Standard Version
Functionally/dynamically equivalent…
- New International Version
- New Living Translation
- Revised English Bible
Between functionally equivalent and paraphrased…
- New Jerusalem Bible
- Good News Bible
Paraphrased…
- Living Bible
- Phillips
- The Message
Why would you want one translation more than another? Well, for the purpose of examining a text closely, it is best for the translator to leave as much as possible up to you. So a more literal translation is best. If translators are translating idea-by-idea instead of word-for-word, they have to insert their own ideas and opinions into the translation when a passage has more than one possible interpretation. That is, they clarify things. But translators are fallible people, and so in order for you to do any investigative work of your own, you should get the translator as far out of the picture as possible. Formally equivalent translations such as the NASB or something close to formally equivalent like the ESV are good picks for this purpose.