What is the most reliable Bible version (NIV, KJV, exc.) What are the pros and cons to your answer.?

Question

That's right. I would like pros AND cons. Please don't hold back. Which Bible version is the most reliable and why should I put my faith in it? Which one do most scholars agree is the most reliable and trustworthy version? Thank you.

Answer 1

KJV, Good for it's day, but outdated.

Known to have over 20,000 mistakes.
Written with bias toward King James and the trinity.

http://www.thedcl.org/bible/diaglott-nt/ed-prefac.pdf

(starting with page 5)

NIV:

Why did the recently published “New International Version” (NIV) of the Bible fail to use the name of God where it appears about 7,000 times in ancient Bible manuscripts? In response to a person who inquired about this, Edwin H. Palmer, Th.D., Executive Secretary for the NIV’s committee wrote:

“Here is why we did not: You are right that Jehovah is a distinctive name for God and ideally we should have used it. But we put 2 1/4 million dollars into this translation and a sure way of throwing that down the drain is to translate, for example, Psalm 23 as, ‘Yahweh is my shepherd.’ Immediately, we would have translated for nothing. Nobody would have used it. Oh, maybe you and a handful [of] others. But a Christian has to be also wise and practical. We are the victims of 350 years of the King James tradition. It is far better to get two million to read it—that is how many have bought it to date—and to follow the King James, than to have two thousand buy it and have the correct translation of Yahweh. . . . It was a hard decision, and many of our translators agree with you.”

Concerning the NIV:

Bruce Metzger: (NIV) "It is surprising that translators who profess to have 'a high view of scripture" should take liberties with text by omitting words or, more often, by adding words that are not in the manuscripts."

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How To Choose Your Bible Wisely, A.S.Duthie.

recommends for serious bible students:

NASB, RSB, NWT.

What is the quality of the NWT?

Old Testament:
In fact, the New World Translation is a scholarly work. In 1989, Professor Benjamin Kedar of Israel said:
"In my linguistic research in connection with the Hebrew Bible and translation, I often refer to the English edition as what is known as the New World Translation. In doing so, I find my feeling repeatedly confirmed that this kind of work reflects an honest endeavor to achieve an understanding of the text that is as accurate as possible. Giving evidence of a broad command of the original language, it renders the original words into a second language understandably without deviating unnecessarily from the specific structure of the Hebrew....Every statement of language allows for a certain latitude in interpreting or translating. So the linguistic solution in any given case may be open to debate. But I have never discovered in the New World Translation any biased intent to read something into the text that it does not contain."

New Testament:

While critical of some of its translation choices, BeDuhn called the New World Translation a “remarkably good” translation, “better by far” and “consistently better” than some of the others considered. Overall, concluded BeDuhn, the New World Translation “is one of the most accurate English translations of the New Testament currently available” and “the most accurate of the translations compared.”—Truth in Translation: Accuracy and Bias in English Translations of the New Testament.

“Here at last is a comprehensive comparison of nine major translations of the Bible:

King James Version, New American Standard Bible, New International Version, New Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, Amplified Bible, Today's English Version (Good News Bible), Living Bible, and the New World Translation.

The book provides a general introduction to the history and methods of Bible translation, and gives background on each of these versions. Then it compares them on key passages of the New Testament to determine their accuracy and identify their bias. Passages looked at include:

John 1:1; John 8:58; Philippians 2:5-11; Colossians 1:15-20; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Peter 1:1

Jason BeDuhn
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and Chair
Department of Humanities, Arts, and Religion
Northern Arizona University

(Please note that according to Dr. Jason BeDuhn, only the NWT translated John 1:1 correctly)

I use all three with greater trust in the NWT.

.

Answer 2

A very difficult question to answer satisfactorily. No one can possibly take the time to evaluate all known translations in the space of Y!-A.

I believe that there is NO one "most reliable Bible version." And neither is it reliable to take the word of "most scholars." Most modern scholars have decided to side with Alexandrian based manuscripts (Nestle and Aland) for translating the New Testament. Yet such texts have been shown to have internal conflicts and other problems (new translations such as: NIV, NAB, NLT, etc., use the corrupted N&A).

"[I]n spite of the age of the materials, some scholars have shown reasons to doubt the faithfulness of these manuscripts to the original text, since they often disagree with one another and show signs of unreliability." -- (Preface to the New King James Version of the Holy Bible)

There isn't as much problem with the Old Testament manuscripts. But once again, most scholars have sided with erroneous positions rather than go out on a limb and side with accuracy or truth.

After source material, there is the matter of translation. There are many philosophies on translation method, and, of course, none are perfect. Though some put more weight on the idea of a passage (paraphrase), others put more toward the literal. Most are some combination of the two. And of course, who is to say who's idea of the meaning of a passage is the true one -- that involves interpretation, and that's another ballpark altogether.

The KJV has a lot going for it. It uses some of the best source material, and its translation is fairly accurate and reliable in most cases. Some would say that the KJV is riff with error. Though it does indeed have errors in it, it seems no more erroneous than most translations -- just the type of errors are different. Where modern scholars have resolved some ancient problems in translational understanding, they have become confused with others. There seems to be no net gain in overall translation understanding.

The KJV also has a lot going against it. The English is archaic, hard to understand for most people, and in some cases the meanings have completely reversed over the centuries from what they were. These points make the KJV rather confusing for new comers to the Bible (and the non-scholarly).

At this point I can't say which has the greater percentage of correctly translated passages -- of course, that may be a subjective evaluation -- all I can say is that I prefer the New King James Version (NKJV) for its readability and accuracy. This by no means asserts that I believe the NKJV is accurate or the most reliable. I use as many translations as I can find to search out the truth of God. But for general reading and initial study, the NKJV is very good. {In this day and age of computer and Internet, there is no problem in availability of multitudinous translations. There are many Bible gateways (I use http://bible.crosswalk.com/ )and even some worthy and free Bible search programs that make many translations available -- for instance, the Sword Project ( http://www.crosswire.org/sword/ ).}

The NKJV has some blatant errors that disturb me in their obviousness. It is clear that the translators of the NKJV sided with popularity of a translation over the truthfulness or accuracy of it.

I uncovered what appears to be an error just the other night. The translation was the same in all modern versions. But two older translations had a very different expression, and it only involved the different placement of a period. But that's neither here nor there.

And there may be something said for the new, and as yet unfinished, World English Bible translation (WEB). It is another attempt to modernize the King James Version.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Original texts cannot be thoroughly expressed in translation.
That said, some translations are (much) better than others.
The best version of the Hebrew Bible out there is the Artscroll Stone Edition. You can usually find it at larger bookstores.

Answer 4

The short answer is None. Of those available, the newer ones are probably better; more of the original texts have been taken into consideration, and differences between these texts resolved in some sense or other. But the book is fiction, as can be seen by any significant comparison between its tales and the actual facts. Hence, no version of the bible should be considered as reliable for any purpose other than discourse about the bible itself.

Answer 5

I'm a fan of my Revised Standard Version. I would recommend finding one that is translated from the oldest surviving documents, not from another translation. I warn people away from the KJV because James, while correcting many errors, did have a habit of edittorializing in places. (The most obvious example is the fact that "witch" appears nowhere in the Bible before the KJV. OT translations from Hebrew generally say sorceress, and the "Witch of Endor" was previously the "Seer of Endor.")

Answer 6

King James is definitive. Any other version is a "softening" to be more approachable. KJ was written in high English and is thusly and towardly and henceforth begotten hard to make sense of. If you are used to it, though, and you go hear a Rev throw out an NIV passage, its sort of anticlimatic. It is the stylistic difference between Charlton Heston and Andy Dick.

Answer 7

Which one is the Bible? They're different books and no one on earth can tell you which is God's word, so I don't think you should put your faith in any of these books, the true Bible God revealed to Jesus (PBUH) don't exist today anymore.
If you really want to know what God said in the original Bible, you should read Quran.
Muslim

Answer 8

As at least 1 answer properly suggested, there is no objective way, in general, to determine the "reliability" of any particular translation (TL). TL, even of modern languages, is fraught with ambiguity. I have 3 TLs of "Around the World in 80 Days", for example. These were written in the late 1800s in French, a language very close to English. Imagine the variability & uncertainty when using texts more than 1500 years old, written in languages no longer spoken as they were then, using many words of which we do not even know the meaning!

That being said, applying reason to this problem can guide you to some degree. First, what *objective* criteria would we want in a "most reliable" bible (B)? Here's what I would choose:
1) I want the source texts used be the most authentic that modern scholars of ancient languages can discover
2) I want the translators to be the absolute tops in their field. In particular, I would want translators who have experience in translating several ancient manuscripts of the *particular book* which they are paid to translate, & that they would be used only to translate the particular book(s) with which they have superior experience to other translators. Note that this is both excessive and incomplete. I would also want experts of the Masoretic text to translate that, experts of the Greek Septuagint to translate that, experts of the Hebrew used in the Dead Sea Scrolls to translate that, etc. etc. Actually, most scholarly modern TLs make an attempt to approach this very ideal. It is far too expensive to achieve it, however.
3) I would want a *team* of translators, of the type mentioned in 2, to determine the TL of each verse in their respective expertise by vote. This might cut down on sectarian bias, & at the very least would prevent the inclusion of "quirky" TLs favored by a single translator. In addition, at least one English professor should be present in this team to approve the meaning of the selected TL in English & assure that any ambiguity present in the TL is also present in the original text. I would far & away favor the use of higher-level English to precisely capture the meaning of the TL as opposed to simpler English that, through the effort of being easier to understand, loses some of the precision of meaning.
4) I would want legitimate but alternate TLs noted (i.e. footnotes containing those verse TLs which failed to win the group vote)
5) I would want all books that might be considered "scriptural" to be included, (canon, abbreviated C) so that I would have the opportunity to choose for myself which books should be deemed worthy, rather than permitting someone else to choose without giving a reason.
6) I would want the *addition* of gender-inclusive language to be avoided at every opportunity. It should be the province of the reader to determine when gender is inclusive and when it is not. Simple instructions to the reader, & perhaps even a notation signifying when gender in a passage may be inclusive or when it is definitely not inclusive, should be sufficient.
7) I would want no transliteration when a TL is known. On the other hand, I would want transliteration for all names (reverting to the Hebrew for a common source of transliteration). Thus, I would always want "Christ" & "Messiah" translated ("anointed one"), while I would want it clear that Jesus & Joshua have identical names ("Yeshua").

Below, I will abbreviate transliteration of the Names of God as TNG, and translation of "messiah" and "christ" as TMC.

OK, so which Bs most closely meet these excessively demanding & exorbitantly expensive criteria? Here are my picks:

NJB - read my review here http://www.jimpettis. com/bibles/njb.htm . The short: it *seems* to me that the wording used is for the sake of precision of meaning (in other words, you should have reached high school, or be a very good reader, before you try to read this). The names of God are transliterated, while the titles are translated (exactly the right way to do it). Unfortunately, no TMC. The notes found in the full "Regular Edition" are scholarly & in-depth, & include readings from the Dead Sea Scrolls among many other sources. The shortcomings: some Roman Catholic bias is displayed in a very few of the footnotes, & may reasonably be expected to be hidden in the TL itself. Published in 1985, so 20 years of discoveries & source text TLs are missing, as well as 20 years of ancient language scholarship improvements. A new edition is under way
http://ebaf.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=173&Itemid=52
but we can expect a wait of several years before its completion.

(V = Version)

NRSV - the most complete C of any English V, & the Oxford Augmented Annotated edition has the most scholarly notes I have seen, at least on par with those in the NJB Regular Edition. Shortcomings: published in 1990 it, too, is showing its age. Over-enthusiastic use of gender-inclusive language makes the NRSV TL of considerably less value than it might otherwise have been. No TNG or TMC. This is probably the English V most referenced by scholars (despite the availability of the NJB) - probably because of the notes, not the TL.

RSV - lacking most of the faults of the NRSV, the RSV is also much more acceptable than that worthy V to fundamentalist Christian groups. The New Oxford Annotated Expanded Edition is supposed to have notes on par with the Oxford Annotated NRSV mentioned above, & the C of this edition is equally inclusive. The primary shortcoming: the age, mostly a 1950's TL with some minor revisions & additions made as late as the 1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Standard_Version
50 years is a lot of biblical scholarship to lose. No TNG or TMC.

Jim, http://www.jimpettis. com/wheel/

Answer 9

THE RELIABILITY OF BIBLE IS ALWAYS SUBJECTED TO UNCERTAINTY...ACCORDING TO OUR TEACHER EARLIER ALL THE CONTENTS OF THE BIBLE ARE NOT TRUE...YOU KNOW WHY?BECAUSE WHEN WE SAY THAT A THING IS GENUINE IT MUST ALWAYS BE FACTUAL...BUT THE BIBLE CANNOT BE FACTIUAL AT ALL...

BUT THE BIBLE IS REALLY TRUE OR RELIABLE IN ITS OWN WAY...SUCH THAT IT STATES BIBLICAL MATTERS ACCORDING TO THE CONTEXT OF FAITH OF THE BELIEVERS...

I STRONGLY DONT AGREE TO THE OTHERS ANSWER BEFCAUSE THIS ANSWER OF MINE IS THE ANSWER OF A PRIEST6 HERE IN THE PHILIPPINES WHO IS OUR TEACHER...

SO IM NOT AN ATHEIST IM PURELY ROMAN CATHOLIC...

I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND...

I PREFER TO USE UPPER KEYS JUST TO EMPHASIZE THIS FACTUAL ANSWER ABOUT YOUR QUESTION...

THIS IS THE TRUE THAT YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE...

CHANGE YOUR OLD NOTION ABOUT IT...

Answer 10

NONE!!! I would like you to answer this question. how would they write bibles back before they used printing presses? They would write tham by hand. And since that is the reason there could've been so many mistakes that they could've made back then, it could be so twisted up by now. So tell me, would you want to read a story book that may not even be right, or just not read them at all?