Serving as a summer missionary in East Malaysia in 1979, I was privileged to bring a hundred or so paperback Malay New Testaments to the people. At one church, members stood in a long line to receive a copy. At the end of the line was an elderly woman. She took her Bible from me with trembling hands, held it close to her heart, and wept. I thought of all my Bibles at home gathering dust.

The English Bible you read is a gift from God, the product of centuries of study and scholarship. William Tyndale is commonly considered its "father." He worked feverishly from dawn to dusk, six days a week, for eleven years. During his lifetime, the church opposed such translations and even placed a bounty on his head. He finally completed the New Testament in 1525; eleven years later he was captured and executed before he could finish the Old Testament. From the gallows he prayed, "Lord, open the eyes of the King of England." God answered his prayer. Your English Bible is proof.

But which English translation is best? A related question occurs to those familiar with Catholic Bibles and translations: why do they have more books than Protestant Bibles? What is the Apocrypha? And why does it matter? We'll take the second question first.

The word means "hidden" or "obscure." With regard to the biblical canon, the Apocrypha are fifteen books which some accept as scriptural and others reject. Here's their story told briefly.

The apocryphal books were probably written at the end of the Old Testament era, following Malachi (ca. 400 B.C.). All are in Greek, though the book of Sirach seems to have had a Hebrew original. Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt accepted them as part of divine revelation. Jews living in Palestine never accepted then as scriptural. All are rejected by Judaism today.

Here are the books, in order: First Esdras, First Maccabees, Second Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Additions to the book of Esther, The Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, The Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, The Prayer of Manasseh, and Second Esdras.

Now the story shifts to Jewish scholars meeting in Alexandria in the second century before Christ. Their goal: to translate the Hebrew Bible into the more-popular Greek language. The process took 200 years to complete, and produced the "Septuagint" (from the Latin word for seventy). According to legend, 70 Jewish scholars translated the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, in 70 days. Given that they lived and worked in Alexandria, these translators included the apocryphal books in their translation, lending them credibility and authority. Later the Roman Catholic Church accepted the fifteen books as part of their canon.

Why are they not in Protestant Bibles? When the Protestant Reformation began nearly 500 years ago, the reformers noted that no Apocryphal book is quoted specifically in the New Testament, and cited scholarly church fathers who maintained a sharp distinction between the Hebrew Bible and these Greek additions. They concluded that these books, while informative history and narrative, should not be considered divine revelation.

For nearly 300 years, the King James Version of the Bible was the only translation used by the vast majority of the English-speaking world. Today there are more versions available than at any time in biblical history. New discoveries in biblical manuscripts, improvements in scholarship, findings in archaeology, and changes in the English language have all made recent translations necessary and helpful. How do you know which is best for you?

First, understand the various methods of biblical translation. The literal approach attempts to render the exact words and phrasings of the biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. The King James Version, the New King James, and the New American Standard are popular examples of this approach. When Paul's Greek uses the phrase "coals of fire" (Ro 12:20), the KJV renders it just that way; the New International Version translates the phrase "burning coals" and the New English Bible, "live coals."

The free or "paraphrasing" approach is the other end of the spectrum. The New Living Bible and The Message are examples. Here the translators renders the sense of the text as they understands it, with less concern about the actual words themselves. The third method is called dynamic equivalence, of which the New International Version is the most popular example. These scholars translate as literally as they can, unless the exact rendering in English obscures the author's intended meaning. This approach combines the best of the other strategies.

If you are going to use only one English translation, I would recommend the New International Version for its accuracy and readability. But I would encourage you to consider using at least one from each translation approach. The New American Standard or New Revised Standard are excellent literal translations; the Phillips or New Living are superb free translations, and Eugene Peterson's The Message is an even less literal but more compelling rendering of the Scriptures. You may be surprised at the way God's word speaks afresh to you when you read it in a different translation.

Tyndale gave his life so you and I could read a Bible in our language. The next time you open the word of God, pause and give thanks for such a privilege. And your hands may tremble, just a bit.