Tommy Keene has another great reflection on his blog, this time about which English Bible is the best version to use. I concur with his conclusion:
There’s a very simple answer to that question: whatever translation your church uses.
In most cases, your default translation should be the one that the majority of people that you are talking to on a weekly basis are regularly using themselves. That doesn’t mean that it’s the only translation you should consult (we will talk about how to do that in a subsequent post), nor does it mean that you need to wave a “Best Translation Ever” flag every time you quote it, but it does mean that any exegetical argumentation you make should usually be grounded in that translation. It means this is the translation you are working from, and it means that if you cannot prove your point from this translation on its own merits then you might want to consider whether or not it is a point worth making.
He goes on to explain that there are many very good English translations. They’ve all got strengths, and they’ve all got flaws. And by “translations,” he’s referring to bona fide translations and not paraphrases.
Check out his reasoning for this conclusion.
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