Your Preferred Mediating or Functional Equivalent Version for Reading

Mark O'Hearn

Recently, I embarked on an abbreviated chronological reading of the Word with the desire to take this opportunity to include a variety of translations (including some of my Formal Equivalent versions) in order to better appreciate what is now available to the English reader. 

I have experience with the NIV (1984 edition), the NLT (second edition), and the HCSB (personal favourite).  Loaded on my Kindle is the NET version, which I intend to read for the next book.  However, I have no experience with most of the Functional Equivalents like GW, NCV, GNT, or CEV.  I did recently acquire the CEB free on the Kindle.

I would appreciate hearing your personal experience with any of these mentioned translations (or any other Mediating or Functional Equivalent versions that you really enjoy) for reading purposes.  I would also appreciate comments concerning the NRSV for reading.

Regards

Ron

My top choice by far is the ISV.  It can technically be considered a mediating translation.  They made every effort to be extremely readable without sacrificing accuracy. I don't have links handy at the moment (though I believe I've posted them elsewhere in the forum), but several reviews show the translation to be as readable as many of the functional equivalent translations or even some of the paraphrases, while maintaining the exegetical accuracy of many of the more formal equivalent translations. The revision we have in ISV is fairly out of date at this point with the newer revisions having corrected many typos, etc...I believe they are trying to get the Apocrypha and the last of the typo-editing finished before submitting the newer revisions to Logos. HCSB would probably be my second choice, but it is a distant second compared to ISV.

EDIT: Here's the forum post where I shared one of the comparisons: http://community.logos.com/forums/t/31874.aspx