"Which Bible" is the "right" one?

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Before you call me a freak, today I was at a meeting of Christians
and Catholics who are...well I can't say the rest.

We read passages from Peter 1 and Romans 10.
Everyone had a Bible, except me.

I am considering taking an English class for Winter Term that focuses
on the Good Book as literature.

So, "which Bible" is the "right" one, if I take this class?

I think the King James version is pretty popular amongst Americans so that could be what you're looking for

Yes, thats the standard version used in America both in churches, and in secular College Literature courses unless they state otherwise.

KJV is a political compromise afaik but it's also one of the more lyrical versions you can get, so it's popular, as people have said.

To my ear the Koren Tanakh, KJV and the Douay bible are the most poetic.

Bad translation from the Hebrew and Aramaic. I do not know enough Greek to comment on KJV translation of the Gospels.

ruveyn

KJV has antiquated English, and since most English speaking people don't even have a good vocabulary set in Modern English it is doubtful that reading Late Middle English is much good for most people. I would recommend the NASB, NKJV, the 1984 NIV, or, if you don't mind reading a Bible that's translated to read like a thesaurus, there's the Amplified. If you really want to read the source texts though you'll have to learn Hebrew and the script of the Tanakh that's used is often the Masoretic Text and there are a few manuscripts of the New Testament surviving such as the Textus Receptus and the Byzantine Text, but otherwise there are the compilation texts such as the Majority Text and various texts produced by the formal methods of textual criticism. If you're just looking for a translation of the Bible in English though, there are my recommendations above and usually there's information on which source texts were translated from and the method of translation utilized (at least in study Bibles, although gift and pew Bibles often are just having a table of contents and the translated text.)

If we are talking about the Bible as literature, then for me it's the KJV, hands down--no contest.

To me, it matters not one whit whether the translations are accurate. It matters not whether the apocrypha are included. The only thing that matters is the beauty of the language as a medium to tell the story. From that perspective, none of the translations that have followed have brought nearly the artistic and literary sensibility to the storytelling.

Others who prefer their storytelling in language closer to the vernacular will disagree--and quite rightly so. But watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and tell me whether Linus' recitation from Luke would sound nearly so good from the NIV. That's the mark of good literature!

I wouldn't know, I have never owned or read a Bible

It doesn't matter, since they are all equally wrong.

Look up Isaiah 7:14 in you translation. If you see the word "virgin" there, consign it to the flames.

ruveyn

And what if it has the word "virgin", translating the same Hebrew word, in Genesis 24:43?


As for the dual reference prophecy of Isaiah 7, let's assume that's it's only single reference to the closer time that was immediately fulfilled. What of the translation of Isaiah 9? If the translation leaves a section of that untranslated, then what? What of the translation of Isaiah 53? Genesis 3:15? 1 Chronicles 17:11-14?

The Hebrew there is Almah which means a young unmarried women. The correct translation is -young woman-. In that context the young woman was most likely a virgin but the word b'tulah (virgin) is not used in the text.

ruveyn

So, if though the word for virgin is not used it is still implied? Even though a young woman in western cultures in modern times has a far lesser likelihood of being a virgin, could it have not have been different approximately 4,000 years ago for people in the extended family of Abraham even if not completely in the other civilizations surrounding?

If they are all equally wrong, then it doesn't matter. But it does matter if they aren't all equally wrong. If the sources have truth in them, even if merely historical, then it does matter how well the translations are made. While it may be so that it is impossible to have absolute accuracy in translation from a source in its original language into a different language, it is still important to minimize deviation as much as is actually possible. It may only matter to those who care about what is written therein, but who else has been the scribes to copy and check their paid work page after page for the millennia prior to computerized writing? A translation should be done just as meticulously and with a respect for truth. If one does not respect truth, they would make a shoddy scribe and probably a worse translator.