A translation takes a document in one language and puts it into another one, trying to stay as close to the original as possible. The confusion comes from the fact that there are different styles of translation.
There is a literal, word-for-word translation (the official name for it is concordant method). This one wants to translate each Hebrew or Greek word into its equivalent English one and keep the grammar as close to the original document as well. This can make for some "wooden" sounding sentences. An example of this kind of translation is the New American Standard.
There is a translation of ideas (the official name for it is free paraphrase method). This one seeks to restate the “gist” of the text in his own words. It results in a very readable version in current English, but gets further away from the original languages. These are what we call “paraphrase” versions. An example of this kind of translation is The Message.
There is a translation that is based on the closest equivalents (the official name is equivalence method). This kind of translation tries to find a middle ground between the literal translation of words and the translation of ideas. It works to avoid the awkward sentence structure that sometimes occurs in a word-for-word translation. Examples of this one are: Revised Standard, New International Version, and English Standard Version.
You may want to have more than one Bible version and compare verses as you study—to see the different ways that they can be interpreted. It can give you a fuller picture of what the original words meant.
