What is the best translation of the bible?

Someone asked my wife the other day what translation of the bible I use. What they were really asking is what is the best translation? The answer to that question is complicated. My first answer would be that any of the major translations are good as far as that goes. Most all of them have strengths and ALL of them have weaknesses. But the problem is much deeper than that. The real problems lie in the presuppositions that are brought to scripture interpretation. Presuppositions make all the difference in the world.

Let's look at science for a minute. In observing the night sky King Ptolemy reasoned that the earth was the center of the universe. That was his presupposition and it was wrong. The sun and stars do not revolve around the earth it just appeared that way to him. Copernicus advanced astronomy and concluded that the Sun was the center of the universe because it appeared that everything in the night sky was revolving around it, including the earth. Each astronomer that followed built additionally on the previous one and more and more facts were revealed and proven mathematically. But each in their own way were wrong in what they presupposed.

Scripture interpretation is very similar. Most all evangelical theologians would agree that the bible contains progressive revelation. In other words, illumination and understanding is added with the development of the scripture. A significant part of scripture interpretation however is based upon presuppositions that are brought to the process very similar to the presuppositions used in developing astronomy theories.

Here are some of the basic presuppositions in evangelical theology. I think they are wrong or only partly right:

• Evangelical Presupposition #1: The New Testament calls the scripture the word of God. I disagree wholeheartedly with this one. The New Testament authors meant gospel when they used the phrase word of God.
• Evangelical Presuppositon #2: The entire scripture is a legal constitutional document and must be read as such. I disagree with this one as well. While I will admit that the Old Testament writings were originally a legal constitutional document to Israel, they broke the covenant. The New Testament writers viewed the scripture as the redemptive narrative for the New Covenant era and Jesus backed this up with his teaching on scripture.
• Evangelical Presupposition #3: The end times is a future happening. While that may be true to an extent, the fact is that the end times that the first century writers of the New Testament referred to was in the first century and related to the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem and the dispersion of the unbelieving Jews.

The bottom line is this. All translations are good and all fall short. Some are better than others. I like the KJV because of its translation of Gal 2:16 & 2:20. It is definitely the faith OF Christ and not faith IN Christ. The KJV falls short in Romans 1:5 as it should be translated the obedience of faith instead of obedience to the faith. Romans 10:17 is more clearly understood in most other translations. I could go on and on but you get the picture.

My best advice is to keep more than one translation. The ones that I use most often are the NET, CSB, NASB, KJV, NLT, YLT, and AMP. I also use the NRSV frequently because it is the one used mostly by modern scholars.