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If you intend to do serious Bible study, a literal translation is what you want. This will enable you to catch more of the detailed implications of the text, but at the price of readability. You have to worry less about the translators’ views coloring the text, though even very literal translations are not free from this entirely.
A second question you will need to ask yourself is whether you want an old or a modern translation. Older versions, such as the King James and the Douay-Rheims, can sound more dignified, authoritative, and inspiring. But they are much harder to read and understand because English has changed in the almost four hundred years since they were done.
One down side to using certain modern translations is that they do not use the traditional renderings of certain passages and phrases, and the reader may find this annoying. The "Good News Bible" or TEV is especially known for non-traditional renderings. For example, "the abomination of desolation" referred to in the book of Daniel and the Gospels is called "the awful horror," and the ark of the covenant is known as "the covenant box."
Some Protestants will tell you that the only acceptable version of the Bible is the King James. This position is known as King James-onlyism. Its advocates often make jokes such as, "If the King James Version was good enough for the apostle Paul, it is good enough for me," or, "My King James Version corrects your Greek text."
They commonly claim that the King James is based on the only perfect set of manuscripts we have (a false claim; there is no perfect set of manuscripts; and the ones used for the KJV were compiled by a Catholic, Erasmus), that it is the only translation that avoids modern, liberal renderings, and that its translators were extremely saintly and scholarly men. Since the King James is also known as "the Authorized Version" (AV), its advocates sometimes argue that it is the only version to ever have been "authorized." To this one may point out that it was only authorized in the Anglican church, which now uses other translations. For a still-in print critique of King James-onlyism, see D. A. Carson, The King James Version Debate, A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979).
As amusing as King James-onlyism may sound, some people take it very seriously. There is even a Catholic equivalent, which we might call "Douay-Rheims-onlyism." The Douay-Rheims version, which predates the King James by a few years, (the complete KJV was published in 1611, but the complete Douay-Rheims in 1609) was the standard Bible for English-speaking Catholics until the twentieth century.
What many advocates of both King James-onlyism and Douay-Rheims-onlyism do not know is that neither Bible is the original issued in the 1600s. Over the last three centuries, numerous minor changes (for example, of spelling and grammar) have been made in the King James, with the result that most versions of the KJV currently on the market are significantly different from the original. This has led one publisher to recently re-issue the 1611 King James Version Bible.
The Douay-Rheims currently on the market is also not the original, 1609 version. It is technically called the "Douay-Challoner" version because it is a revision of the Douay-Rheims done in the mid-eighteenth century by Bishop Richard Challoner. He also consulted early Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, meaning that the Douay Bible currently on the market is not simply a translation of the Vulgate (which many of its advocates do not realize).
For most the question of whether to use an old or a modern translation is not so pointed, and once a decision has been reached on this question it is possible to select a particular Bible version with relative ease.
I recommend staying away from translations with unconventional renderings, such as the TEV, and suggest using the Revised Standard Version. I use the Catholic Edition. This is a Church-approved version of the RSV that has a few, minor changes in the New Testament. It has been reissued by Ignatius Press under the title The Ignatius Bible.
In the end, there may not be a need to select only one translation of the Bible to use. There is no reason why you cannot collect several versions of the Bible, only be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each. It is often possible to get a better sense of what is being said in a passage by comparing several different translations.
So, which Bible is the best? I think the answer is ... The one you’ll read.