I’ve made some changes in my approach to Bible translations. As I spend a lot of time trying to share the Bible with new Christians and non-Christians, I’ve come to value readability in a text. A book I read pointed out that the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, the Greek of the street, not Classical Greek, the language of the scholars. It was written to be understood by the common man. The Bible versions that we use need to understandable as well.

I will admit, though, that I don’t care for versions that do a lot of interpretation instead of translation. Obviously, some degree of interpretation is necessary, but some versions, in an attempt to simplify things, take away the reader’s opportunity to make their own interpretations.

I haven’t found the perfect Bible version yet. That’s part of the reason why I believe in using multiple versions in our Bible study. Those of us who aren’t fluent in the original languages shouldn’t tie our understanding to a single translation. Multiple viewpoints help us better understand God’s truth.