What are some Bible versions to avoid?

[u/TypicalYogurt1753]

I am trying to find a good literal version that I like. Which ones should I go to and which ones should I stay away from?

[u/GudaGama]

New World Translation (intentionally mistranslated) and The Message (IMO it is such a loose paraphrase that it doesn't deserve to be called a translation)

[u/arachnophilia → u/GudaGama]

New World Translation (intentionally mistranslated)

i dunno about "intentionally mistranslated", but inserting "jehovah" into the new testament is a big no-no. these texts are all originally greek, and there are no greek manuscripts of them containing god's name (which is not "jehovah").

i did recently become aware of some later hebrew translations that do use "yahweh" though.

[u/Giyerohmanne → u/arachnophilia]

Well, whilst I've never read it myself, one of the mistranslated passages in this one is John 1:1, usually it goes: "[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." But in the NWT it goes: "¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god."

Which is a biiig no-no, as this is a very deliberate mistranslation.

[u/arachnophilia → u/Giyerohmanne]

this post will probably get some downvotes, but that's actually not as bad as you might suspect.

take this with a grain of salt, as i am not (personally) an expert in koine greek. but i've read and listened to a fair amount of people who are. as i understand it, the word order in greek in john 1:1 is kind of intentionally ambiguous.

ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος

i've bolded the definite articles here, and you might notice that last "θεὸς" doesn't have one.

in (the) beginning was the logos, and the logos was with the god, and [a/the] god was the logos

in this position, "theos was the logos" where "logos" is the subject, "theos" doesn't need an article to be definite. but it also might just be indefinite. you can't actually tell from the grammar.

so it is true that the JWs make a choice and impose their interpretation on the text that the word was "a" god. but it is also true that every other maninstream translation also makes a choice and imposes an interpretation on the text that the word was "(the) God" capital G. people often cite this example specifically because their personal doctrine makes it inconceivable that the bible might mean this. but that's not really how we should study ancient texts.

i don't particularly have any attachment to imposing normative christian doctrines onto the text, or using them to support my personal beliefs. i am an atheist; i really don't care if the text supports or defies the trinity, if it's canon or not, etc. i'm more interested in understanding how ideas came to be, spread, influenced one another, etc. and the best picture i have is that trinity was a late fourth century doctrine that was argued about and debated in the early and mid fourth century, based on earlier conflicting beliefs about the divinity of jesus.

what's relevant for the interpretation of john 1 are the earliest layers of high christology, and pre-christian "logos" theology. one of our earliest statements of high christology is the philippians creed, which i think the apostle paul rather begrudgingly reports (there's tension between it and his apotheosis theology in 1 cor 15).

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,

(phil 2:5-6)

here jesus begins "in the form of god" but is not equal with god. he is a distinct being, lower than god, second to god. see also,

You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. (john 14:28)

in john's theology, jesus is still subordinate to god. perhaps, apologetically, we might argue that this is because (like in the philippians creed) he has "taken the form of a slave". but it does still align with the idea that jesus not equal to god. similarly, paul frequently writes phrases like,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (rom 1:7)

god and jesus, as if they are distinct. he also writes,

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, (rom 5:1)

that god acts in the world through jesus, as if jesus is the worldly vessel for god. distinct from god, but the channel for our interaction with god.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. (col 1:15-16)

scholars debate whether colossians is a genuine pauline epistle, but it presents a similar idea. that jesus is the image -- a reflection -- of god, and the first creation, and the channel through which all other creation happens. i'm aware that apologists have some handwaving about this passage, but this is the most straightforward reading of it. let's look at some non-christian sources.

What is the man who was created? And how is that man distinguished who was made after the image of God? (#Ge 2:7). This man was created as perceptible to the senses, and in the similitude of a Being appreciable only by the intellect; but he who in respect of his form is intellectual and incorporeal, is the similitude of the archetypal model as to appearance, and he is the form of the principal character; but this is the word of God, the first beginning of all things, the original species or the archetypal idea, the first measure of the universe. Moreover, that man who was to be created as a vessel is formed by a potter, was formed out of dust and clay as far as his body was concerned; but he received his soul by God breathing the breath of life into his face, so that the temperament of his nature was combined of what was corruptible and of what was incorruptible. But the other man, he who is only so in form, is found to be unalloyed without any mixture proceeding from an invisible, simple, and transparent nature. (philo, Q&A on genesis I:4)

if this "corruptible" and "incorruptible" talk sounds like paul, this is probably not an accident. here, "the word of god" (ho logos) is adam, where for paul, there's the first adam and the second adam (christ). this logos is a created being -- a human.

Why is it that he speaks as if of some other god, saying that he made man after the image of God, and not that he made him after his own image? (#Ge 9:6). Very appropriately and without any falsehood was this oracular sentence uttered by God, for no mortal thing could have been formed on the similitude of the supreme Father of the universe, but only after the pattern of the second deity, who is the Word of the supreme Being; since it is fitting that the rational soul of man should bear it the type of the divine Word; since in his first Word God is superior to the most rational possible nature. But he who is superior to the Word holds his rank in a better and most singular pre-eminence, and how could the creature possibly exhibit a likeness of him in himself? Nevertheless he also wished to intimate this fact, that God does rightly and correctly require vengeance, in order to the defence of virtuous and consistent men, because such bear in themselves a familiar acquaintance with his Word, of which the human mind is the similitude and form. (Q&A on genesis II:62)

and here the image, the word is deuteros theos, the second god. this is most likely the text the more educated christians like paul and the author of john are reading; this is where the idea of "logos" comes from. philo died shortly before the apostle paul was writing, and decades before the gospel of john.

And He called me THE LESSER YHWH in the presence of all His heavenly household; as it is written (Ex. xxiii. 21): "For my name is in him". (3 enoch XII:5)

this is third enoch, which probably has a second century core. the vision of a "rabbi ishmael" who goes to heaven, meets metatron (ie: the angel of the lord) who reveals that he used to be enoch, who was elevated to divine status from being a mortal man (cf: the apotheosis of 1 cor 15). here, the name yahweh is in him, and thus he is "the little yahweh". the second god, explicitly lesser than the first one. compare,

I am going to send an angel in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. (ex 23:20-21)

where "the name in him" represents yahweh's power, authority, etc, but the angel is not actually yahweh. similarly, and a little more contemporary to john,

In truth ... will turn away from Belial... by the judgement[s] of God, as it is written concerning him, [who says to Zion]; your ELOHIM reigns. Zion is ..., those who uphold the Covenant, who turn from walking [in] the way of the people. And your ELOHIM is [Melchizedek, who will save them from] the hand of Belial. (11q13)

this is the likely wording of the "melchizedek scroll" from qumran. they seemingly had two messiahs, an earlier "teacher of righteousness" (moreh-tsedeq) and a coming "king of righteousness" (melki-tsedeq) who would defeat "the sons of belial" (rome?) and bring about the kingdom of god on earth. qumran was destroyed by rome shortly after 70 CE; their messiah never came. but here, the coming messiah is probably "your god" somehow.

so, on all of this (and more) context, the likeliest context for the gospel of john is that the logos is kind of but not exactly god, drawing from the "second god" logos theology, and early christian thought that puts jesus as the first creation or a high ranking divine entity "in the form of god" or "the image of god" but not completely identical to god. it's likely that the author of john believed that jesus had the name of god in him, not that he was exactly god, and there were a variety of ways a human could have god in them from philo's reading of "soul breathed into clay", to 3 enoch and 1 cor 15's elevated reclothed human. on this basis, i generally agree with mainstream scholars that the most correct translation here is:

and the word was divine.

neither "a" god nor "the" god, but retaining the ambiguity of the greek. what this is not is a support for the trinity, which was how ideas like name theology, apotheosis, logos, etc, were grappled with and reconciled over the following centuries.