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It might surprise you but I've recently been using e-Sword bible software. It contains several KJV versions, Geneva, Bishops as well as some of the silly modern ones. Contemporary English Version is included for light humor. Well, if blasphemous and careless translations is actually humorous. The e-Sword program allows you to lay them out in up to 4 parallel versions, quite handy. And I can have tons of study helps too. Gill, both Henry's, Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, Nave's, etc. So it is quite complete.

I found they had several modern translations from the Receptus family. The one I found interesting and useful to use in conjunction with KJV with Strong's numbering was one called the Analytical-Literal. It's unique characteristic is that it is the first Bible version to be based on the second edition of Byzantine Majority Greek Text. It's strengths are that it includes one of the same textual features that I find so valuable in the KJV, namely, showing where words are added by translators for clarity. When used along with the tooltip-style Strong's numbers in e-Sword, it has actually helped me to gain a lot more understanding of many verses that are, admittedly problematic. It helps most in just parsing out the phrases and seeing the structure of the Greek text. It takes away so much of the tedium out of doing word studies.

At any rate, I guess even us KJV guys aren't all we're cracked up to be. I would maintain the King James as the most error-free of translations and the most reliable. But it is not insuperable and we can always benefit from sound bible study provided we use reliable references based on appropriate texts.

The Amazon link provides a short summary and examples from the ALT.

Home of the ALT publisher
Amazon: ALT

Go ahead and laugh, I'm standing by it! :-)

Taken as a whole, the KJV uses significantly fewer words, less complex words, and simpler sentence structure than does the NIV. This is particularly true in the Gospels and in the OT. The epistles are often difficult to make simple in any translation -- because the originals aren't simple. The KJV specifically had in view its public reading to a public that was not highly educated. I grew up around simple country people, many of whom hadn't been to high school, but who understood the KJV perfectly well for the most part. Pastors made sure to correct the obvious misunderstandings, and all was well.

In general, when the KJV is convoluted or obscure, it is because the original language is convoluted or obscure (I am here speaking to the Greek only -- I couldn't read Hebrew to save my life.) Many modern translations have a knack for making simple things falsely complex, and complex things falsely simple...

C.S. Lewis once wrote about the updating of the BCP. One of the changes made was that there was a prayer that asked that our rulers would apply the law "indifferently." This was updated to "impartial." Lewis asked a few villagers what they thought "indifferently" meant, and they replied that they supposed it meant that it meant that it didn't make any difference to the ruler one way or another how things turned out -- which is a pretty good definition of impartial. On the other hand, they had no idea what "impartial" meant.

I grew up on the KJV and know many, many verses and passages in it by heart as a result. When I was a senior in high school, our pastor recommended switching to the NIV for private study, and our pew Bibles were changed to the NIV a couple of years later. I used it through college and early grad school, changing back to the KJV during my Anglican years. I can now hardly get through a paragraph of it anymore... It is banal in the extreme, IMHO.