Expert: Dean Gade - 5/20/2006

Question
as you probably know that there are many different types of bible that have been published, thus, making it hard for me to decide whether to read the thought for thought or word for word version. also, can i really trust or believe that the bible was not translated to better serve for certain organizations. so my question is, how do i choose which bible to read?

Answer
There is a built in problem with translations.  Many of the words in the Hebrew Old Testament and
Greek New Testament do not have a completely equivalent word in English.

The word in these languages often means more, has more definitions, than the word in English which is used to translate it.  And the same is true with a word having less coverage than ours.

A way to help overcome this is to buy a "study Bible" such as the Amplified Bible.  This translation is not for easy reading but is for better understanding of the words.  It does this by adding in various definitions of the word in parenthesis.

Another way is to have two or three version translations which have several, or even three, different translations side by side.

The most exact method is to study biblical Hebrew and koine Greek to such an extant that you can look up the words in lexicons and concordances to see the full meaning of each word.  However, this usually takes having an instructor/teacher and possibly several years of study.

Since there the words do have different meanings, some translations do show a bias for their own religious dogma. These are usually in translations which have been made by one denomination or another.

If I were you, I would start with the "Amplified Bible" and "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance".  Neither is that expensive and they do not need instruction to use.