The Bible is a collection of 66 books (and letters) that were written down by more than 40 authors over thousands of years. The "Old Testament" books of the Bible were written in Ancient Hebrew (which is very different from modern Hebrew), and the New Testament books were written in Koine Greek (which is very different from modern Greek).  

Compared to other ancient writings, the books of the Bible are unparalleled in their number of copies, archeological attestation, widespread dissemination, and preservation.

When it comes to the Old Testament books, there is practically no question about what the text is, because it does not vary at all. The fact that the text of the Old Testament writings were the same in the Dead Sea scrolls made extremely clear that the text had not changed over time.

However, the New Testament has an interesting problem that the Old Testament writings do not have: Not all of the copies of each book are identical.  There are two groups of texts (commonly known among scholars as "text families").  Later in this article, we will do a deep dive into the differences between these two text families.  

Right now, we are just pointing out: Translators make a choice before they translate. They have to pick which manuscript family they want to translate.  This is an important choice, because the two textual families do not even contain the same books. (Specifically, the Book of Revelation is missing entirely from one of the text families.) 

When a translator approaches the Biblical text, their beliefs about the text will directly impact how they translate that text.

A person who believes that the Bible is the actual words of God will produce a very different translation from someone who believes that the text is not any different from any other ancient text.

Some translators believe that the text of the Bible should be updated from generation to generation, as people change their minds in society. Other translators believe that text is actually the words of God and are not to be fiddled with.

It's not a make-or-break issue, and we won't spend much time on it here.  But it is definitely something to consider when picking a Bible translation.  When a Bible translator is openly living in a lifestyle that Jesus would identify as sinful, I would at least consider it a "yellow flag."  There are plenty of people out there who make a living of examining the lives and publications of certain translators, so all I will do is offer a few questions that you might want to ask, as you consider the source of your translation of the Bible:

• Is the text of the Bible (in the original languages) actually what God wanted to communicate to humanity?

• Should the text of the Bible be updated as people find newer and weirder ways to sin, and as popular opinion changes?

• Is sin something defined by God, or is it something defined by society as a whole?

This is usually what people think of when they think of translation.  Basically, it is the question "Do you translate word-for-word, or concept-for-concept?"

I'll give an example: 

Five different books in the Old Testament use the phrase "the little man of my eye." (Deuteronomy 32:10, Psalm 17:8, Proverbs 7:2, Lamentations 2:18, Zechariah 2:8)  This is referring to the black part of the center of the eye, where you could see a reflection of yourself if you were very close to someone's eye.  (This reflection, of course, is the "little man.")  The King James translators chose to translate this as "the apple of my eye," because everyone was using that phrase, and it meant about the same thing: it referred to your eye, and something that conveyed intimacy, protectiveness, and closeness.

This is an example of the sort of thing people are asking about when they want to know about the method of translation.

Personally, I think God wants us to talk about it all the time. Babel was for our benefit, after all.

Number of manuscripts

Location & Distribution

Age of manuscripts

Who liked each set

The bits that are clearly screwed up 

"Oldest and best" is not remotely accurate