Better Bible Study: "Which Translation Should I Use?"

As promised, here is the first of several posts that I hope will encourage you as you seek to be strong, with the word of God living in you (1 John 2:14, one of the passages we looked at this past Sunday).

Assuming you don’t read Hebrew or Greek (the two main languages in which the Bible was originally written), the most basic tool for your study of Scripture is a good English translation or, actually, several good translations.

The reason for this is explained well in chapter 2 of Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Zondervan, 2003; a very helpful book, by the way), but the bottom line is this: No translation is perfect. Some try to be as literal as possible (called “formal equivalence”), but this sometimes obscures meaning and often reads funny (that is, in ways we don't actually speak); others try for a more “thought-for-thought” approach (called “functional equivalence”), but this can end up being more interpretation than translation at times, and some significant nuances in the original language can be lost. So, use a couple of different translations, and when they read quite differently for a particular verse, you’ll likely need to seek outside help (such as a good commentary - more on this later) to clarify what the verse says.

Here are the best translations to use (in my opinion), listed from the more “word-for-word” to the more “thought-for-thought” in approach:

NASB - New American Standard Bible
ESV - English Standard Version
TNIV - Today’s New International Version (an excellent revision of the best-selling NIV)
NLT - New Living Translation

There are certainly other translations that you may find helpful, such as The Message (which is actually more a paraphrase than a translation), but these are the ones I primarily use. You can access any of them (and more) for free online at www.biblegateway.com. I go there all the time to compare translations and create my teaching outlines by cutting and pasting verses (you can look up the same passage in multiple translations at www.biblegateway.com/passage).

But what if you are looking to get one Bible for basic reading and study? I really like the TNIV. Like its predecessor (the NIV, which is what we have in the auditorium seats), it strikes a good balance between "word-for-word" and "thought-for-thought," but it brings the NIV up-to-date in terms of contemporary language usage (for example, where the NIV reads "God . . . wants all men to be saved" in 1 Timothy 2:4, the TNIV reads, "God . . . wants all people to be saved").

One last tip: There is a great web-based translation found at www.bible.org/netbible that has thousands of excellent footnotes giving you insight into the original languages. Check it out—it’s free!

Yours for better Bible study,
Dave Detwiler