The difficulty with the Authorized Version (aka King James or KJV) is that most people educated after ~1970 haven’t learned to read Elizabethan English (as almost all of us whose education began earlier did by reading Shakespeare, poetry,etc.) or to use a prescriptive dictionary through which older meanings are readily discerned.
That said, the modicum of effort required to use the AV is almost always more than repaid by the richness of language and the sense of walking hand in hand with our forebears for whom it eas THE BIBLE.
I find most newer translations aesthetically flat and without impact. But, in fairness, when I was small, the VV was being replaced by the RSV and just preferred the sound of the AV. Newer translations even make the RSV sound decent.
(practically. Maybe next read through I'll use NASB, if I can find one that's single column, paragraphed, minimalist. (See the ESV Reader's Bible for an example of what I mean).)
I use Bible Hub, so I can compare versions. I like to go to Strong’s, to find out exactly what words mean. I have an Interlinear Bible, that gives the literal translation, and includes the corresponding Strong’s Concordance numbers, so I can look up word meanings. As far as the King James, for the most part, it is fairly literal, but that doesn’t account for the many sayings that aren’t, such as the “eye of the needle” wording. But for beauty, it’s the King James.
I know quite a few people who went to the living Bible but after they really started understanding the whole concept they threw it away and went back to the KJV or Douay Rheims.
I enjoy the KJV, but find myself checking my understanding with the NASB
Hard for me to follow the KJV. I finally purchased a NASB Life Principles Bible thru Dr. Charles Stanley. Very easy to understand,IMO. Also Dr.Stanley describes Life Principles throughout the Bible.
Before being saved, I started reading a New King James bible. Then a friend said, “don’t read that” and bought me an NIV bible.
Thinking he was tricking me with some new fangled version, I continued to read the NKJV bible alongside the NIV. After a time I realized that the NIV said the same thing, it was just easier to read.
The first church I belonged to used NIV so that was cool. When we switched churches, they used NKJV. So, I purchased an NIV/NKJV parallel bible.
Following along with the pastors sermons (NKJV) he kept correcting it saying “in the Greek, that word means ...”. I would look at my parallel NIV scripture and inevitably it had the same translation of the word the pastor was correcting from the NKJV. This happened over and over again. This lead me to just use my NIV bible.
Now, in study and verification exercises, I use ALL versions. Usually at https://www.biblegateway.com/
I have found the New Testament, English translation of the Codex Sinaiticus (the world’s oldest bible circa 350 AD) http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/ comes closest to be a mixture of KJV and NKJV.
I like the New King James Version. Over the years I have read other translation currently have NASB on my coffee table. It’s interesting to note speaking for myself even though I find old KJV hard to read it is what I memorized as a child. For example, many of us perhaps learned the Lords Prayer as a young child and we learned the Lords Prayer using the OKJV rather than the newer translations. And now if I read a passage of the Lords Prayer from something other than OKJV it just sounds different.
I like ESV.
Very easy to read English and not written at a 8th grade level.
ESV is a good readable literal word for word translation.
KJV is often a weak translation on many verses, old English not very readable. Any version that labels the Holy Spirit as a ghost should be questioned for reliability on beng an accurate translation.
This will explode KJO heads as must as a statement like: Any Church, Except Roman Catholic, Bible Discussion
Discovered that the ESV is my preference. The New Living Translation is good if I were reading aloud.
Invested in an English Standard Study Bible, Large Print and an ESV, large print carry around Bible.
Thanks.