Which Bible Translation Can I Trust?

I trust and recommend the New King James Version for regular reading, study, and teaching. It retains the received Greek New Testament behind the King James tradition and translates the Masoretic Old Testament into understandable English. Explaining that recommendation takes more than saying which version sounds best. We need to consider the text being translated, the method used to translate it, and the confidence we place in God’s preservation of His Word.

Confidence Begins With God’s Promise to Preserve His Words

Jesus said that man lives by “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Scripture’s authority therefore reaches the words themselves. If a translation leaves a phrase out or renders it differently, I need to understand why, especially when I am going to teach the passage to someone else.

“The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. You shall keep them, O LORD, You shall preserve them from this generation forever.”

Psalm 12:6-7

I read Psalm 12’s promise of preservation in connection with the pure words described in verse 6. Other readers understand the people threatened earlier in the psalm to be the ones God keeps. My confidence in the endurance of God’s Word rests on Scripture’s wider testimony as well as my reading of this psalm.

“Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.”

Psalm 119:89

Jesus affirmed the permanence of the Law down to its smallest features:

“Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”

Matthew 5:18

A jot refers to the smallest Hebrew letter, and a tittle to a small distinguishing stroke. Jesus was affirming the authority of what God had written, down to its details. He also promised that His own words would endure:

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”

Matthew 24:35

I believe God has kept His words available to His people through the generations. That does not require every handwritten copy to be free from mistakes, or make every translator’s decision correct. Copies can be compared precisely because the text was transmitted in many witnesses.

Those promises do not name an English version or a particular printed Greek edition. My conclusion about the received text involves an assessment of its history as well as my conviction about preservation. I receive the Masoretic Hebrew tradition for the Old Testament and the received Greek tradition represented in the Textus Receptus for the New Testament. I believe these are the texts God’s people should continue to translate and use, rather than treating their Bible as something lost until modern scholarship recovered it.

That conviction gives me no excuse to misdescribe a manuscript or accuse a translator of trying to destroy the faith. Critical-text Bibles contain the gospel and teach the central Christian doctrines. My disagreement concerns particular readings, the authority given to different witnesses, and how those decisions affect what Christians read as Scripture.

The Old Testament Text Entrusted to Israel

Paul wrote that to the Jews “were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2). They received and transmitted the Old Testament, written chiefly in Hebrew with some portions in Aramaic. Jesus treated the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms as authoritative Scripture (Luke 24:44). The Masoretic tradition carries forward that Hebrew Bible.

The Masoretes were Jewish scribes who worked especially during the sixth through tenth centuries AD. They transmitted the Hebrew consonants and supplied vowel points, accents, and notes to guide the text’s reading and copying. They did not compose the Scriptures in the Middle Ages. Their manuscripts preserve writings received much earlier, whose lasting authority Jesus affirmed:

“Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled”

Matthew 5:18

The age of a surviving copy and the age of its wording are different questions. The Leningrad Codex, a complete Masoretic manuscript, dates to AD 1008. The text it carries did not originate in that year. The Geneva Bible, KJV, and NKJV all use the Masoretic tradition, though they did not use identical printed Hebrew editions.

The Septuagint, often abbreviated LXX, is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Its beginnings lie in the translation of the Torah, the first five books, in Alexandria before Christ; other books followed. Greek-speaking Jews and early Christians used it, and some New Testament quotations resemble its wording closely. Its importance should be recognized even though I do not give a translation authority over the Hebrew text. The Septuagint examines that question further.

Differences are sometimes substantial. Greek Jeremiah is about one-eighth shorter than the Masoretic form, and the Psalms are numbered differently in places. A difference may arise from translation choices or from a different Hebrew source, so it is inaccurate to attribute every variation to a Greek translator freely rewriting his text. Ancient Greek biblical collections also contain books outside the Hebrew canon. Catholics receive several of these as deuterocanonical books, part of their Old Testament; Protestants commonly group them among the Apocrypha. I do not receive them as inspired books. Jesus and the apostles’ use of Greek wording does not establish the authority of every book later bound into a Greek biblical collection.

Isaiah 7:14 illustrates the value of the Greek witness. Its word parthenos means virgin. The Hebrew almah describes a young woman of marriageable age, and Matthew 1:23 identifies the prophecy’s fulfillment in Christ’s virgin birth. I understand Isaiah to have foretold that birth. The ancient Greek wording supports this reading without requiring us to claim that its translators understood every detail of the future fulfillment.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, first discovered near Qumran in 1947, provide much older witnesses than our complete medieval Hebrew codices. Biblical scrolls date from the centuries before Christ into the first century AD and include portions of nearly every Old Testament book. Many readings agree closely with the later Masoretic text, while others resemble the Hebrew behind the Septuagint or show other forms. They testify both to substantial continuity and to real variation. I would not claim that every Qumran copy is an identical early Masoretic Bible. The study on The Dead Sea Scrolls explains these witnesses in more detail.

The Samaritan Pentateuch preserves Genesis through Deuteronomy in a separate community’s tradition. The Syriac Peshitta and Latin Vulgate also let us examine how Scripture passed into other languages. These witnesses help us study difficult readings and understand ancient interpretation. My position remains that the received Hebrew text should govern an Old Testament translation.

The NKJV’s own translators used the Stuttgart edition of the Hebrew Bible, compared earlier printed Hebrew, and consulted the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Dead Sea manuscripts. The NKJV preface explains that work. Thus, recommending it does not mean its translators refused to consult other witnesses. Most modern versions likewise begin with Masoretic Hebrew; the disagreement concerns when a different reading should replace it. I favor retaining that received base, while examining evidence honestly rather than pretending no variant exists.

The Received New Testament and the Alexandrian Critical Text

Thousands of Greek manuscripts, together with ancient translations and early Christian quotations, bear witness to the New Testament. Most of their text agrees, but some readings differ. The Byzantine tradition predominates among surviving later Greek manuscripts and was used extensively in the Greek-speaking churches. A Majority Text edition aims to represent the reading supported by the majority of witnesses, generally within that tradition.

The Textus Receptus, meaning Received Text, is a series of printed Greek editions beginning with Erasmus in 1516 and continuing through editors such as Stephanus and Beza. Its name came later. These editions drew largely from Byzantine manuscripts and supplied the Greek base for Tyndale, Luther, the Geneva Bible, the KJV, and other Reformation translations. The NKJV and MEV continue that received-text approach.

The Textus Receptus and the Majority Text are closely related, but they are not interchangeable names for an identical text. Some received readings have little support in surviving Greek manuscripts. Acts 8:37 and the heavenly witnesses in 1 John 5:7 are examples we will consider below. My reception of those words cannot rest on a claim that most Greek copies contain them. The study on The Majority Text and Textus Receptus develops the relationship between these texts.

Modern critical editions, including Nestle-Aland and the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament, weigh manuscript evidence and assess how a reading might have arisen. They give substantial weight to early Alexandrian witnesses, including Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, but they also consult other manuscripts, translations, and quotations. An eclectic text selects readings from more than one witness; it is not simply a transcription of either codex. The ESV, NASB, NIV, NLT, CSB, and NRSV generally follow this critical-text approach.

Supporters argue that early, independent witnesses may preserve a reading before later copying altered it. That is a serious argument, though I do not accept physical age as sufficient grounds to overrule the received text. A late copy can transmit an early reading, and manuscripts used continually may wear out and need replacement. At the same time, we cannot establish that a particular copy was accurate merely because it survived, or that another disappeared because faithful people wore it out. Those possibilities do not supply the missing history of every manuscript.

Vaticanus is a fourth-century manuscript long kept in the Vatican Library. Access and publication expanded during the nineteenth century. It has missing portions, including parts of Genesis and Psalms; its surviving ancient New Testament text stops during Hebrews, and the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus), Philemon, and Revelation are absent. Later hands supplied some material. A missing leaf is different from a copyist choosing to omit a verse, so the manuscript’s physical losses should not be presented as proof that its scribes rejected those books. Codex Vaticanus considers this witness separately.

Sinaiticus also dates to the fourth century, and its surviving New Testament is complete. Tischendorf brought it to wider scholarly attention through his nineteenth-century visits to St. Catherine’s Monastery at Sinai. His account of rescuing leaves threatened with burning, and the circumstances of the manuscript’s later transfer, have been disputed. The collaborating institutions’ history acknowledges uncertainty about parts of those events. Sinaiticus contains numerous corrections that deserve study, but a correction alone does not establish that the resulting reading is false. The study on Codex Sinaiticus gives a fuller discussion.

I receive these codices as important ancient evidence without accepting them as the final standard over the received text. Their age does not remove the need to evaluate their readings, just as the number of Byzantine copies does not make every one identical. Ancient Syriac, Latin, and Ethiopic versions contribute evidence too, although a translation into English should work from the original languages rather than simply translate another translation.

My conviction is that God preserved His Word in the life of His people, who copied, taught, and translated it. The Reformation editions involved human editorial decisions, and the evidence is more complicated than “most manuscripts against two bad manuscripts.” I nevertheless receive the Textus Receptus as the New Testament base to retain. We should state that judgment candidly without turning it into an inaccurate account of what the manuscripts contain.

Translation Method Shapes What the Reader Receives

Once the original-language text has been chosen, translators still have to put it into English. Formal equivalence, often called word-for-word or essentially literal translation, seeks to retain the vocabulary and grammatical relationships as closely as readable English permits. The KJV, NKJV, ESV, and NASB generally follow this approach, though their textual bases differ.

No responsible translation works by replacing each Greek or Hebrew word with one fixed English equivalent. Word order, idioms, and a word’s meaning in its setting require judgment. I prefer a method that makes those necessary adjustments while leaving the reader able to examine the wording rather than receiving a running explanation in its place. For study and teaching, that gives the passage more opportunity to correct my interpretation.

Dynamic or functional equivalence puts greater emphasis on expressing the meaning in natural contemporary language. The NIV and NLT use that approach to differing degrees. The CSB describes its method as optimal equivalence, combining more literal renderings with dynamic ones where its translators judge them necessary. These are differences of degree, and all translation involves interpretation. My concern is that a rendering can settle an ambiguity or supply an explanation that the source wording leaves for the reader to examine.

The Message and The Living Bible go further toward paraphrase. The Message was produced from the biblical languages, while The Living Bible paraphrased an existing English translation. Both use freer restatement, and I would consult them as interpretive aids rather than make them the foundation for doctrine. A memorable phrase may express the paraphraser’s explanation more strongly than the original wording warrants.

In Galatians 3:16, Paul reasons from “seed” rather than “seeds” and identifies Christ as the promised Seed. In Matthew 22:32, Jesus cites “I am the God of Abraham” and argues from God’s continuing relationship to the patriarchs that He is the God of the living. These passages require attention to the words and their context. They are not invitations to build arguments from English grammar without examining the original language. I prefer formal equivalence because I want that detail available, while recognizing that an English translation is not a newly inspired original.

Why Textual Differences Cannot Simply Be Dismissed

A variant can affect a passage even when the same doctrine is taught elsewhere. Proverbs 30:6 warns, “Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.” Revelation 22:19 warns against taking away from the words of that book. These warnings require us to avoid adding as well as subtracting. Whether a disputed phrase belongs is precisely the question; agreement with a true doctrine alone cannot establish its original wording.

I receive Mark 16:9-20 as Scripture. It is present in the Byzantine tradition and has a long history of use, though important early witnesses lack it. The passage concludes with Christ’s ascension and the apostles’ ministry:

“So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.”

Mark 16:19-20

Modern versions often print the ending with brackets or a note explaining the evidence against it. Such a note does not always mean the passage has been removed, but it asks the reader to regard its place in Mark as disputed. I retain it as part of the Gospel, including its testimony to the Lord confirming the apostolic preaching.

I also receive John 7:53-8:11, the account of the woman accused of adultery, though many modern versions bracket it:

“When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’

She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’”

John 8:10-11

Jesus refused to condemn her in that encounter while commanding her to leave her sin. His mercy cannot fairly be used to suggest that adultery is acceptable. I receive the account as inspired Scripture. Its manuscript history is disputed, but I would not treat it as optional material for a teacher to remove from John.

In 1 Timothy 3:16, the received wording names God directly:

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory.”

1 Timothy 3:16

Critical editions commonly have the reading translated “He who was manifested in the flesh,” where the received text has “God was manifested in the flesh.” The former can still refer to Christ and does not make His deity disappear from the Bible. I prefer the received wording, which identifies Him explicitly. Colossians 1:14 likewise names the blood of Christ:

“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”

Colossians 1:14

Critical editions lack “through His blood” here, while retaining redemption through His blood in Ephesians 1:7. Their translators are not thereby denying the necessity of His blood. My question is whether these words belong in Colossians too, and I retain them as part of the received text.

The received wording of Acts 8:37 states the eunuch’s faith before Philip baptizes him:

“Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’”

Acts 8:37

Faith precedes baptism in this reading; baptism does not produce the new birth. Most modern versions leave the verse out of the main text or place it in a note. The NKJV’s own note acknowledges that the Majority Text also omits it and that it occurs in Western witnesses, including Latin. I retain it, but the evidence prevents me from presenting this as a reading found in most Greek manuscripts. Christians who follow a critical text can still teach faith before baptism from other passages; the disagreement here concerns this verse.

John 6:47 states the object of faith explicitly:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.”

John 6:47

The critical text lacks “in Me” at this point, though the surrounding discourse identifies Jesus as the One to believe in. I retain the phrase because it belongs to the received wording, without suggesting that the shorter reading teaches that any belief whatever will save.

Two further examples involve how a person is named. Luke 2:33 reads:

“And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him.”

Luke 2:33

The received text says “Joseph and His mother,” whereas the critical text has “His father and mother.” I prefer the received wording’s clarity about Joseph. However, Luke 2:48 also records Mary calling Joseph Jesus’ father, even in the NKJV, referring to his family role. The alternative wording in verse 33 need not claim that Joseph was His biological father or deny the virgin birth.

Mark 1:2 introduces prophetic words preparing for John the Baptist’s ministry:

“As it is written in the Prophets: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.’”

Mark 1:2

The quotation combines language from Malachi with Isaiah’s words in the following verse. The critical text names Isaiah rather than saying “the Prophets.” I retain the broader received wording, which readily includes both prophets. Readers who defend the other reading understand Isaiah’s name to introduce the combined citation, so their position should not be reduced to knowingly accepting an error.

The received text also preserves this statement in Matthew:

“For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.”

Matthew 18:11

Critical editions omit Matthew 18:11, though Christ’s mission to save the lost remains explicit elsewhere, including Luke 19:10. I retain the verse in Matthew. Teaching the same truth somewhere else does not settle which words Matthew wrote.

In 1 John 5:7, the received text names the heavenly witnesses:

“For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.”

1 John 5:7

I receive this wording in the Textus Receptus, but the NKJV’s textual note states that the Majority Text, as well as the modern critical text, omits the heavenly-witness wording. Its surviving Greek support is very late and sparse. I retain it as part of the traditional printed text. The Johannine Comma examines this question. The Trinity does not depend on this verse alone: Scripture’s wider testimony establishes one God in three co-equal, co-eternal Persons, as the study on The Trinity explains.

Other differences occur in Matthew 9:13, Matthew 19:17, Luke 4:4, Luke 9:56, Luke 23:42, and Romans 8:1. Each needs examination in its own context. Some concern omissions, others different wording. I do not dismiss them as mere typography, but neither would I infer that every variant has the same origin or consequence. My preference remains to retain the received passages while describing the evidence accurately.

From the First English Bibles to the NKJV

English readers did not always have ready access to a Bible. In the fourteenth century, Wycliffe and his followers worked from the Latin Vulgate. The Lollards helped spread those English Scriptures at considerable risk. Their translation did not come directly from Hebrew and Greek, but it helped bring the Bible within reach of ordinary people.

Tyndale translated his sixteenth-century New Testament from Greek, using Erasmus’s printed text. Many of his clear, forceful expressions passed into later English Bibles. He was executed after being condemned for heresy, and his determination to make Scripture accessible continued to influence the English-speaking church. The Geneva Bible followed in 1560, produced by English exiles. Its received Greek and Masoretic Hebrew base, accessible wording, and study notes made it influential, including among the Pilgrims. Some of its notes on government offended rulers who disliked the limits Scripture placed on them.

The KJV appeared in 1611 after James I commissioned a team of translators. It drew on the received Greek editions and Masoretic Hebrew, along with earlier translation work, and became the principal English Bible for centuries. Its influence on public worship, family reading, and the English language was enormous. I regard it as a faithful translation, and recommending the NKJV does not require someone who understands and uses the KJV to abandon it.

The nineteenth century brought a marked change in the Greek base of English translation. Westcott and Hort’s 1881 edition gave great weight to Alexandrian witnesses, and the Revised Version and later American Standard Version reflected that critical direction. The NASB, NIV, and later ESV continued with critical texts, despite their different translation methods. The NASB and ESV generally aim at more formal correspondence, while the NIV permits freer restructuring. My objection to their New Testament base is separate from that difference in method.

The complete NKJV appeared in 1982. It retained the Textus Receptus New Testament while updating older English and preserving much of the KJV’s familiar form. That allows a child or new believer to read without repeatedly needing an explanation of words no longer used in the same way. It also gives a teacher wording close enough to the source to explain the passage carefully.

Its textual notes distinguish the received reading in the main text from Majority and critical alternatives. I appreciate that arrangement because it lets me examine a disagreement without moving the received passage out of the body of Scripture. Notes are useful when they tell the truth about evidence; I should not praise them in my preferred Bible and condemn their mere existence in someone else’s. I disagree with the decisions that remove received readings, rather than with the practice of making those decisions visible.

For these reasons, I recommend the NKJV over the NIV, ESV, NASB, NLT, CSB, and similar critical-text versions as a main Bible for teaching and study. This is a judgment about the textual foundation and, in some cases, translation method. It is not a declaration that those versions contain no Scripture or that Christians reading them cannot know Christ. Nor does it make every NKJV wording beyond discussion. The preserved Hebrew and Greek remain the standard by which an English rendering is assessed.

Once I have chosen a Bible, I need to read it in context, learn what it teaches, and receive its correction. Familiarity grows through sustained reading, thoughtful memorization, and hearing Scripture taught in the church. The study on How to Study the Bible Properly offers practical help. A translation preference will do little good if I use it to win arguments while ignoring the words in front of me.

Those words direct us to Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, fully God and fully man, born of a virgin and completely sinless. Wicked men physically tortured and punished Him, and He willingly bore that real punishment for our sins in His innocent body. He shed His blood and died, completing His saving sacrifice before burial and His bodily resurrection. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were united in saving us.

Christ died for the sins of the whole world. God genuinely offers His grace to every person, though people can resist it and reject Him. Everyone who repents and believes in Christ is forgiven and born again. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals that believer, who is eternally secure in Him. New life should be evident in our conduct; our obedience neither purchases salvation nor keeps us saved. Choosing a sound translation serves our hearing of this gospel and our obedience to the Savior it reveals.

My Final Thoughts

I recommend the NKJV because I believe it brings the received text into clear English without requiring readers to set aside passages I receive as Scripture. That conviction should make me attentive to the words I read and honest about the evidence behind them. We can state a firm judgment about translations while treating other Christians fairly. Above all, I want us to believe the Christ Scripture reveals and obey Him, because confidence in a Bible we leave unread will not produce faithful Christian living.