Foreign Language Bibles I Recommend

I believe that the King James Bible is the Word of God without error. I am often asked about which Bible versions are best in various other languages and where to find them. I study foreign languages as a hobby and have done a lot of research so I have the answer to some of those questions.

Spanish

When it comes to Spanish, I highly recommend the 2010 Reina Valera Gomez. The 1602 and 1909 Reina Valera are also good translations, but I think the 2010 Reina Valera Gomez is the best one. What you want to stay away from is the 1960 version, which is more on par with corrupted versions such as the New King James and the N.I.V.

Fortunately, the RVG 2010 is easy to find online. Just Google it. Framingtheworld.com now offers a small pocket New Testament that’s a Reina Valera Gomez for the more affordable price of five dollars. FWBC give out thousands of these for free since we just want to get them into people’s hands.

Portuguese

The Trinitarian Bible Society, which is an excellent resource for foreign language Bibles, sells the Almeida Corrigida Fiel version in Portuguese, which is a great translation. They also sell a parallel Bible that includes the English KJV side by side with the Portuguese.

Greek

Trinitarian sells the Greek N.T., which is the Textus Receptus. People like Gail Riplinger have wrongly claimed that this book has over 50 discrepancies. I fact checked this myself by looking up every instance mentioned in her book and comparing the Greek New Testament side by side with the KJV. As it turns out there are only two minor typos in the Greek. The first one is that they accidentally left out the word “Amen” at the end of Ephesians. I fixed this by writing the word Amen in myself with a pen. The other error is that in one place in Acts it says "word of the Lord" instead of "word of God," which is obviously not a huge difference. The rest of Riplinger's "discrepancies" were mainly outright lies and fabrications on her part. If you are looking for a Greek N.T. that is accurate, Trinitarian Bible Society has it. They also sell the Hebrew Old Testament.

Romanian

I highly recommend the "Fidela" Bible, translated by independent fundamental Baptist missionary Brian Nibbe. Before this translation, the choice was between the corrupt Westcott & Hort based Cornilescu Bible and the Romanian Orthodox Bible. I opted for the Orthodox Bible because it was at least translated from the Textus Receptus, but most Baptists used the corrupted Cornilescu Bible. Now that the Fidela Bible is available, it's a no brainer.

German

Unfortunately, I’ve never really been able to find a great German Bible. Martin Luther’s version is several hundred years old, but he did not believe in a literal translation method. The Martin Luther Bible that the Trinitarian Bible Society puts out is a little better. It was improved in 1998, but it still has a few issues. The 2000 Schlachter Study Bible from Switzerland is probably only a little better than the Martin Luther translation.

French

There is a French Bible translation done by David Martin in 1744, which is probably the best option in French. I found this Bible recently for sale on Lulu.com. I believe the New Testament sells for about 12 bucks and the full Bible is a little over $30. There’s also another older French version that came out before a lot of the modern changes took place, and that one is called the Ostervald New Testament.

Other Languages

If you go to Trinitarian’s website they sell a lot of great older Bibles that line up with the King James. For example, they have the 1637 Reformation Dutch Bible, the Polish New Testament from the 1600s, and an Arabic New Testament called the Van Dyke. For just one dollar, you can get the Gospel of John in Turkish. Maltese and Armenian New Testaments are just five dollars each. The Gospel of John in Telugu, an Indian language, is just one buck. I even found a Nepali New Testament and a full Bible in a language of Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for every language. For example, in a lot of the Scandinavian languages, the old versions are out of print. There’s a great Norwegian Bible version that’s still out there, but I don’t know where to buy it. It is also hard to find the old Hindi Bible and the older Japanese Bibles anymore. As a general rule, if you go back to at least the 1800’s, people had the right Bible, but the old Bibles are often rare and not available online. In some cases, they are out of print but may still be available in electronic form. I’m not saying the Bibles I mentioned are the only good ones. I’m just giving you the information I have and trying to point you in the right direction on how to find the best translations.

If you know of any other good foreign language Bibles, let me know in the comments. 

Here is a link to the sermon "Two Problems with Modern Versions of the Bible"