@ Mandy. I too am awashed with Bibles - it's a great trait of being saved! When God gave me a thirst for the word there was only 2 Bibles in the house - a Tagalog Bible (Phillipine language) and a NCV Bible (New Century Version) so I had to go for the NCV. About 1/10th of the way through the NCV I knew something was wrong with it and dumped it for a New King James - I still like that Bible as it has some really good foot notes, but I moved on to a King James a bit later and from that point on and haven't had any reason to change to annother. As my wife is not an native English speaker, we have a few NIV's littered around the house, though she preffers the American Standard Version most. I think the next Bible I'll buy will be 'the message' - purely to see exactly how bad it is! (note to self - find a second hand one)

EC - from what I've seen of "The Message" Bible, I can safely say that I think it's awful! I'd be interested to hear what you think of it!

The only Bible so far, that stands up to the scrutiny of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is the Authorised, 1611, KJV. King James really utilized the very best scholars and minds in the field of literature, academics, history, linguistics and so on, to put together that Bible. No wonder Guy Fawkes and his Roman Catholic Jesuit cohorts wanted to assasinate him, before King James could have the work completed!

As for the other Bibles, they are only good as a 'Thesaurus', when you try to compare 'line-for-line' like Isaiah teaches us, in Isaiah 28:10 "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:"