Which 'modern' English translation of the Bible is considered the 'closest' or most accurate translation?

Question

Which 'modern' (anything inclusive of King James Version to date) English translation of the Bible is considered the 'closest' or most accurate translation from the original Hebrew & Greek texts?

By accurate or closest, I'm referring to which one(s) is/are literal, which translate the Hebrew and Greek texts to the closest literal meaning possible in English.

Answer 1

Among popular translations, New American Standard Bible is one of the most literal translations from the original languages, attemping to preserve as much as possible of the original sentance structure and word order.

From more literal to less literal popular translations include: NASB, ESV, KJV, NKJV, NRSV, NIV, NLT, CEV, The Message. (list order courtesy of evangelicalbible.com)

However, an interlinear bible would far exceed the NASB as a more literal translation, as the english is not even arranged in the English word order, but is translated as a footnote or subtitle under the Hebrew or Greek, often with annotations about the part of speech.

Answer 2

There are a few translations that are probably considered more literal than the NASB. These all have "literal" in the title. They tend to be less readable, but certainly more literal. Included are the following:

• Young's Literal Translation (YLT), Robert Young - 1862

• Green's Literal Translation (LITV), Jay P. Green - 1985

• Analytical-Literal Translation (ALT), Gary Zeolla - 2001 (NT), 2012 (OT)

Answer 3

I agree wholeheartedly with Jessica Brown's answer, but there's another dimension to accuracy: the text a translation is based on. Before the Tyndale Bible, English translations were made from the Latin translation (the Vulgate) and not directly from the Greek. For obvious reasons, these translations are automatically less accurate to the original texts than more recent translations.

Until quite recently, English Bibles were translated from a version of the Greek New Testament called the Textus Receptus produced by Desiderius Erasmus. It was formed from just 6 Greek manuscripts and was supplemented by translations of Vulgate texts back into Greek. By contrast, modern Greek texts make use of over 5,800 Greek manuscripts including some found only within the last 100 years.

Modern translations of the Old Testament are also informed by the Dead Sea Scrolls, which strongly support the Masoretic Text. Older translations were unable to benefit from these sorts of discoveries.

Thankfully, English translators have a long tradition of including introductory notes to their work. If you look in the first few pages of a Bible, it's quite likely you will be able to read an impassioned argument for why that particular English version should be read and used. You can get a good idea of the translation philosophy represented in the subsequent pages and where the editors stood on controversial issues such as gender-inclusive language, archaic pronouns referring to God, translating the names of God, and so on.