Which Bible Translation?

There are so many. How do I choose?

When I wrote my post about God’s Word transcending Bible translations, I got some comments and questions about which is which.

God's Word is Not Limited by Earthly Language

The other day, I came across Mike Winger’s video about this exact subject on YouTube. It’s a great resource and I agree with everything Mike says, with perhaps some tempered feelings about the Message Bible, which I do think has a place.

Personally, I have three primary versions that I use regularly:

1. The NIV (New International Version). Our church uses this as the standard Bible in services.

2. The NLT (New Living Translation). This is my standard daily reading Bible. It flows very well and it’s easy to understand.

3. The NASB (New American Standard Bible). This is my “go deep,” word-for-word translation when I want something that is much closer to the original source languages.

I’d encourage everybody to have a couple of translations handy when you’re reading. Sometimes, you’ll read one translation and look up and say, “I don’t get it.” When that happens, pop on over to another translation and see if it makes more sense. If a verse strikes a deep chord in my heart, I’ll sometimes read it in two or three translations to see how they render it and whether it strikes the same chord or not. Every translator needs to make choices about how to render the source words and ideas into English, and sometimes those choices will make a lot of sense to you and sometimes they won’t.

I do most of my reading on The Bible app (YouVersion) on my iPad. I even use it on my phone during church. YouVersion makes it trivial to switch between versions and that’s really helpful for studying.

I also will sometimes read the KJV (King James Version) and the Hawai’i Pidgin Version (HWP). 😀 And even the Message Bible.

We’re blessed with a wealth of good English translations and we should not be afraid to embrace them (while avoiding the bad ones like the New World Translation).

Let me know what you read and why. Leave me a comment.