Top 10 Bible Translations to Avoid For New Believers in 2025

Bible Translations to Avoid: There are many versions of the Bible that claim to make the text easier to understand, but not all of them can give the right meaning. You did read it right.

Some people say that the Bible translations on the list of things to avoid when searching online are not in line with some biblical teachings and have been changed to fit their religious views.

These parts of the Bible shouldn’t be read by people who don’t follow a different religion. That’s not because they want to be prejudiced or separate, but because most of these readings are wrong and take away from the truth of God’s word and its message.

Did you know that the English Bible has been translated into more than 450 other languages? Most of these versions aren’t used very often anymore, but some are, and unfortunately, many of them don’t do a good job of keeping God’s Word alive.

You should never use the following translations because they can lead to major theological errors, preaching a different gospel, and making up a fake Jesus.

A large group of dishonest translators has a strong bias that affects most of these translations. To back up their false religious claims, they change the Bible in any way they see fit.

Other translations put one translator in charge of a job that should be done by a group of well-known bible interpreters from different religions. Some just add ideas that weren’t in the original writings, or they leave out whole parts of the Bible. [Bible Translations to Avoid]

When it comes to Bible versions, there are three main types: paraphrasing, thought-for-thought or dynamic equivalency, and word-for-word or formal equivalency.

The reader has to work harder to understand word-for-word translations because they are more exact translations of the source language.

That thought for thought shows what the author meant, and that’s what the original audience would have understood when the piece was written. People who read the translations have a lot more faith in them because they depend on their opinion.

The Bible is often paraphrased by a single author who “translates” it into their own words, sometimes without using the original languages.

That being said, there are other signs that will show if a translation is a real copy of the original, perfect, and unchangeable Bible or a fake book pretending to be a Bible. It is important to know which versions fit into each of these three groups.

Read Also:- Top 21 Best Bible Reading Plans 2025

Do not study the Bible with these translations.
When studying the Bible, it’s important to stay away from sources that change God’s original message and instead use true pictures of the original autographs, which are the first copies of each of the 66 books. The following “Bible” translations should not be used for any real and honest personal Bible study (we will look at a list of Bible translations that are suggested for use in a different article).

What are the disadvantages of NIV?

Auto-PEEP generation, lung damage caused by the ventilator, and pain or muscle strain from not interacting properly with the ventilator are all bad bodily effects of NIV that can happen. [Bible Translations to Avoid]

Bible Translations to Avoid: Overview

Bible translation is the process of reading parts of the Bible that were written in a language other than the original. At first, the Bible was written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Over time, though, both religious writers and smart students began to make copies of the Bible.


There are different copies of the Bible:

Translation of the New Living Translation (NLT) of the King James Version (KJV) of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. Most people agree with the translations mentioned above. However, there are a few more in this article that you should avoid because they don’t accurately show or convey the image or message that the Bible tries to send in its original letters.

10 versions of the Bible you should stay away from

Here is a list of Bible versions that you should not use:

1. NWT, which stands for “New World Translation

It is the first time that the Bible has been written in Hebrew and Old Aramaic. This book was put out by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WBTS). More than 210 different languages now talk about the Northwest Territories (NWT), which were just formed in 1961. There are religious groups that use and share it, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The WBTS group says that the New World Translation Committee asked that the names of its members not be made public while the NWT Bible was being made. In other words, no one knows how good or clear the NWT members are. [Bible Translations to Avoid]

It was found that four of the five volunteer translators did not know any Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic after a careful study. It is not possible to translate the Bible. In all of those languages, people had to be able to read and understand the Bible.

On the other hand, the WBTS says that a lucky group of God’s Witnesses translated the NWT Holy Scripture right away from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek into modern English.

People who speak English as their first language got most of their information about the New Testament from the King James Version. The WBTS decided to make its own transcription because most of the others were in old languages.

In big ways, the NWT is not the same as other trustworthy Bibles.

There are some blanks in this Bible form. For the first time, a different language is used. Some Greek words have also been changed to “Jehovah.” These include “Lord” (Kurios) and “God” (Theos). In no way does this mean that the Lord Jesus Christ is a good god or a part of the Trinity.

The NWT says that the Hebrew “Old Testament” is written in Hebrew and the Christian Greek “New Testament.”

The Bibles that are correct are next to the Bibles from the New World.

God made the sky and the earth in the beginning. God’s active force was moving across the top of the water. The top of the ground was flat and dark. Gen. 1:1–7 in John.

God made the land and everything in it in the beginning. It was dark, and the land didn’t have any shape. There was God’s spirit in the seas. Almighty replied, “Make there be illumination,” and there it was. Gen. 1:1–7 in John. [Bible Translations to Avoid]

KIV: In the beginning, God made the land and everything on it. The ground wasn’t made in any way, and the edges of the gaps were dark. The Spirit of God went down the river. It was bright after God said, “Make that bright.” Gen. 1:1–7 in Johns.

2. A clear translation of the Bible

The Clear Word is not a translation, but a spiritual paraphrase of the Bible that has been made longer to make it easier to understand. Its goal is to help people grow spiritually and make their faith stronger.

A lot of people were upset when the Clear Word Bible came out because many writers, including Jack J. Blanco, who used to be the head of Southern Adventist University’s School of Religion, looked at some of the translations and found that they had a clear Adventist theological bias.

No matter if all of those theological flaws were fixed, The Clear Word would still not help people who want to understand what the Bible says. A lot of comments have been added to The Clear Word and are part of the text.

A lot of people get it wrong when they use TCW as a Bible instead of a spiritual translation. People have the wrong idea about what God said because it has been completely paraphrased.

The Clear Word was first released by Southern Adventist University’s Southern College Press. It was then sold through Church-run Adventist Book Centers.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church often uses this form of the Bible, even though the Church has not yet officially backed it.

Other Bible readings are very different from The Clear Word.

TCW is different from other paraphrases because it is written in lines instead of paragraphs. Some words were taken in the wrong way, like “Lord’s day,” which was changed to “Sabbath” in line with Seventh-day Adventist Church rules.

Accurate Bible Translations and Clear Word Translations Side by Side.

Read Also:- How to Find Balance in a World of Spiritual Extremes

TCW: God did something to make the world. He made the sky and the earth. The earth was nothing more than a cloud-covered mass of made-up matter floating in space. It was very dark. After that, God said, “Let there be light,” and the Holy Spirit flew over the cloud. And there was light all around. Genesis 1:3–7.

NASB: In the beginning, God made the earth and the sky. On top of that, the earth was a shapeless, empty space. The deep was dark, and God’s spirit hung over the light. Genesis 1:3–7.

KIV: In the beginning, God made the earth and the sky. The face of the deep was dark, and the ground had no shape or form. As Well As the Spirit of God passed across the water’s surface. God replied, “Let that be brightness,” and immediately there was brightness. Genesis 1:3–7. [Bible Translations to Avoid]

3. The Passion Translation (TPT)

The Passion version (TPT) is a modern alternative English version of the Old and New Testaments. Actually, 5 Fold Media released it in 2017, not Broadstreet Publishing, which is the current publisher.

Dr. Brian Simmons, a revolutionary in the church, was the main translator of The Passion Translation. TPT, according to his transcript, is a modern, easy-to-understand Bible translation that shows God’s passionate heart and speaks of his flaming love-fusing feeling and transformative truth.

A lot of differences exist between this Bible version and others, and TPT is not at all what he said it was. To be more specific, TPT is not an exact translation of the Bible; rather, it is more of a paraphrase.

Biblical Gateway took TPT off their website at the start of 2022. Christian website Bible Gateway has many versions and formats of the Bible.
Different from other Bible versions, the Passion Translation offers a unique perspective.

What made TPT possible was essential equivalency translation, which includes changes that weren’t in the original texts.

A comparison is made between accurate Bible translations and Passion translations.

Truth About the Bible (TPT): When God made the heavens and the earth, the deep was completely dark and had no shape or form. The water’s surface was moved by God’s spirits. The moment God said, “Let there be light,” light appeared! Genesis 1:1-3.

NASB: In the beginning, God made the atmosphere and the earth. Heavenly spirits hung over the seas, the deep was dark, and the land was a shapeless, empty void. Jesus replied, “Let that be light,” and at that time was light. Genesis 1:1-3.

Jesus built the earth and the sky in the beginning. Darkness, emptiness, and an unformed ground covered the face of the deep. Additionally, God’s Spirit moved across the water’s surface. At the time Jesus replied, “Let that be sunlight,” there was indeed light. Genesis 1:1-3.

4. The news from MSG

You should also stay away from The Message, which is a Bible translation. After working on parts of the MSG, a Bible translation used by Presbyterians (a faith group), Eugene H. Peterson finished it in 2002. Eugene H. Peterson completely changed how people understood the Bible. Some of God’s words were taken out of the Bible and his own words were added.

The MSG publisher says that Peterson’s work was carefully checked by a group of experts in the Old and New Testaments to make sure it was correct and in line with past languages. This description is not accurate because the MSG has many mistakes and wrong ideas that are not in line with God’s truth.

5. The Bible in Everyday Life

The Living Bible, also written as TLB or LB, is another reading of the Bible that was made by Kenneth N. Taylor. It is not an actual copy into English.

In 1971, people could get the Living Bible. Tyndale House Publisher hired a group of ninety Greek and Hebrew experts in the late 1980s to make changes to The Living Bible.

Taylor’s translation of John 12:15 is an example of a false passage or verse that comes from the fact that he didn’t know Hebrew or Greek and didn’t look at the original texts. If you look at this in the ESV, it says, “Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion; look, your king is coming sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

Taylor added his own words, though, and he got many Bible verses wrong. The TLB used the American Standard Version of the Bible as its source and did not look at the original texts.

In the end, this project led to the creation of a completely new Bible version. The Holy Bible: New Living version (NLT) was the name of the new version when it came out in 1996.

It is more exact than TLB because NLT used dynamic equivalency, also known as thought-for-thought translation.

There are important differences between the TLB and other Bible versions.

That many Bible verses and paragraphs might have been misunderstood since TLB’s difference from other Bible translations wasn’t based on the source text. [Bible Translations to Avoid]

Taking a look at the Living Bible and Precise Bible Translations:

TLB: When God made the heavens and the earth for the first time, the earth was a shapeless, chaotic mass, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the scary clouds. Almighty said, “Let’s there become light,” and that light became a well-being. Genesis 1:3–7.

NASB: In the beginning, God made the earth and the sky. The seas were filled with the spirit of God, the deep was dark, and the land was a shapeless, empty nothingness. Almighty said, “Let’s there become light,” and that light became a well-being Genesis 1:3–7.

KIV: In the beginning, God made the earth and the sky. The face of the deep was dark, and the ground had no shape or form. As Well As the Spirit for God came across the water’s surface. Almighty said, “Let there become light,” and immediately there was brightness. Genesis 1:3–7.

6. An English translation of the Queen James Version (QJV)

The King James Bible and the Queen James Version (QJV) are not at all the same. The Translation Committee and the Ancient Manuscripts scholars have not been set up yet, so it is not known if they are experts. It wants to get rid of any way to understand the Bible or any “homophobic” way of reading it. People also don’t like how it handles works about homosexuality.

In support of LGBTQ+ acceptance, this version gets rid of words that suggest that such behavior is okay. But because it’s not true to the source, it uses words and phrases that are hard to understand, which raises the possibility of misunderstandings.

Read Also:- How to Choose a Good Study Bible

“Do not lie with men as with women in the church of Molech; it is an abomination” (QJV, stress added). This is what’s Leviticus 18:22 says. The QJV presents this part in a particular way.

7. The Septuagint Translation

The Hebrew Bible’s first Greek translation most likely took place in the third century BC. The Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek is traditionally dated to the reign of Egypt’s Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BC).

Nonetheless, this version appears to have been widely accepted by the Jewish community throughout the Second Temple period for a variety of reasons, but it has been largely rejected as a sacred text in mainstream Rabbinic Judaism since late antiquity.

The Septuagint is frequently not used as a Hebrew source text, as evidenced by the Book of Job. It is a Christian canon that includes the Hebrew Bible texts as well as other writings related to the Greek Old Testament.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches incorporate significant Septuagint material into their canons, although Protestant denominations often reject it.

Following the Reformation, many Protestant Bibles began adhering to the Jewish canon, eliminating passages known as “the uncanonical Apocrypha.”

The Apocrypha is classified in the King James Version of the Bible, although there is no coherent corpus in the Septuagint. This collection contains a comprehensive translation of the Tanakh as well as other Jewish texts that are widely regarded apocryphal.

The canon of the Jewish Bible began to emerge throughout the course of the century it took to write the Septuagint. Over time, a large number of people have translated these sections for a variety of purposes, often based on the original Hebrew manuscript. [Bible Translations to Avoid]

8. The Tyndale Translation (TYN)

Catholic officials in England condemned Tyndale’s translations, which resulted in a ban on his work as well as the purchase and cremation of copies. Thomas More, a well-known Catholic layman, was accused of purposefully mistranslating old scriptures in order to foster anti-clericalism and heretical views.

They specifically referred to the terms “church,” “priest,” “do penance,” and “charity,” which were rendered in the Tyndale translation as “congregation,” “senior” (later changed to “elder” in the 1534 revised edition), “repent,” and “love,” thereby contesting fundamental doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Tyndale Bible TYN refers to the texts of William Tyndale’s biblical translation into early modern English, which was initially published between 1522-1535.

Tyndale is credited with the first English translation of the Bible directly from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, despite relying heavily on the Latin Vulgate. The Bible was mass-produced thanks to advances in printing technology.

Tyndale did not print the entire Bible in English, hence the moniker “Tyndale’s Bible” is somewhat misleading. Myles Coverdale finished a complete English Bible in 1535, including his own translations.

Tyndale translated the New Testament, the Pentateuch, and the Old Testament’s historical books before being executed. Throughout Tyndale’s lifetime, Old Testament readers could access the Pentateuch, the Book of Jonah, and a revised edition of Genesis.

When the Matthew Bible was first published, another of his Old Testament texts was taken into consideration, which had a great impact on its global translation.

Tyndale’s Bible translation had elements that were injurious to the Roman Catholic Church, which were interpreted as a betrayal by state officials in Brabant in 1536.

9. Translation of the Masoretic Text

From the 6th to the 10th centuries AD, academics at the Talmudic Academy in Babylonia and Palestine worked hard to achieve the highest possible replication accuracy. Their goal was not to interpret the Bible’s significance, but to deliver a real Word of God to subsequent generations. To accomplish this, they meticulously collected manuscripts and used all available oral traditions.

When each part’s final codification was completed, the Masoretes did not just count and record the number of verses, languages, or letters in the Torah. They also failed to clarify which passage or concept was relevant to it. This would allow the identification of any further changes.

Since then, it has been credited with maintaining a high level of consistency in Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts by painstakingly referencing the Masoretic text during its compilation.

The Masoretic text held a complete monopoly for 600 years, and researchers have been amazed by the precision of the earliest printed version (late 15th century) in comparison to the earliest existing codices (late 9th century). The Masoretic Text is widely regarded as the actual Hebrew Bible.

The Masoretic Text serves as the Hebrew foundation for the Old Testament, whereas the Textus Receptus provides the Greek text for the New Testament. We cannot determine the meaning of this Bible translation because there is no Hebrew documentation for the Old Testament. [Bible Translations to Avoid]

This Bible translation is not to be overlooked because of its correctness and verbatim transcripts; nonetheless, it cannot convey the complete virtues and historical context of the Bible.

10. Paraphrasing Tool for Translation

• Paraphrasing, also known as reconstitution, is the process of rephrasing a text using different terminology while retaining its original meaning. A paraphrase often communicates a deeper meaning than the original material.
• Essentially, it serves as a translation of the text that preserves the same basic meaning but is spoken in a different language. For example, when someone relates a story they’ve heard in their own words, they’re effectively providing a paraphrase that keeps the original meaning.
• Paraphrasing, which was likely prevalent in oral tradition, has been around since Roman times, when it was promoted as a targeted educational practice to improve children’s linguistic abilities.
• This tradition remained throughout the Middle Ages, when authors such as Geoffrey Vinsauf developed school activities centered on rhetorical manipulation and paraphrasing to improve poem and speech creation. The study of paraphrasing regarding plagiarism issues and original authorship has sparked interest.
• Fred Inglis defines five degrees of paraphrase for instructional purposes.
• Substitute phrases with equivalents
• Diverse sentence construction
• Reorganizing Information
• Condensing long statements into shorter ones (or vice versa).
• Putting abstract ideas into concrete terms.
• Although some believe the use of synonyms in paraphrasing to be an acceptable teaching strategy, it is critical to employ sentence structure modification approaches. This is critical to reducing the likelihood of plagiarism.
• According to research conducted among English language students, ESL (English as a Second Language) learners prefer to paraphrase using synonyms rather than altering sentence structures. The examination of Vietnamese ESL students revealed a predilection for using synonyms, which stemmed from concerns that poor sentence construction would affect the intended meaning of their words.
• According to Na and Mai, ESL educators should provide a variety of tasks that need syntactic changes, while also providing ESL students with easily understandable source texts for paraphrasing.

My Experience

I quickly learned that not all Bible translations are the same when I first started looking into them. I had doubts about the correctness of some translations because they didn’t seem right.

I came across the New World Translation (NWT), which is mostly used by Jehovah’s Witnesses and changed some important bible words in ways that seemed wrong. One more interesting find was *The Clear Word*, which isn’t really a translation but a highly paraphrased version with specific theological interpretations.

It made me realize how important it is to pick a Bible version I can trust. Being aware of these differences helped me stay clear and close to the basic meaning of the Bible. If you’ve never studied the Bible before, you should be careful about which translation you choose.

Conclusion

The selected Bible translation should be based on a manuscript that allows for correct comprehension and interpretation of the text.

Regarding our previous debate, you may not fully understand the Bible and the divine message it provides; so, such interpretations should be avoided.

Bible translations frequently differ based on religious beliefs, and the text may change; therefore, it is critical to be aware of this fact. As a Christian, you should be aware of these translations to avoid being mislead.

FAQs:-