Apart from the King James Version, which do you think would be the best translation to use?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘Where Did the New Testament Come From?’ (2006).

That would be a very difficult question to answer. Apart from the Authorized, get a reasonably modern translation. They vary from towards paraphrase to being literal translations. One of the more reasonable modern ones is the English Standard Version. That tries to bring English up to date, but not give way to too many dynamic translations, as the NIV tends to do. It tries to keep the language moderately sedate and not slang; so the English Standard Version is a good one to read.

That said, of course, if you like a translation that's very vigorous and a bit of a paraphrase, because it helps you to get the feeling of the thing by all means read it. When it comes to deciding your doctrine, use a translation that is much more literal. In the NIV, if you come across a new thought that you didn't know existed before and this seems marvellous—when it comes to doctrine, a wise thing to do is to check it by reading some much more literal translation.