J.P. Green is good, as is Rotherham's, Scarlett's, Young's, and the Concordant. For word studies, I'll tend to consult Rotherman's, Scarlett's, Young's, and the Concordant along the way, but I'll tend to use NASB, Concordant New Testament, and Scarlett's New Testament most of all, though I still favor the NKJV - but just haven't been able to find the thing since I moved and have rarely thought about it since my last move.
Probably use NASB and the CLNT the most though.
When I'm reading through the book of Revelation though, I'll prefer the much stricter Scarlett's, Young's, and Concordant because I was raised on the Hal Lindsey - uh...trying to be nice to what's probably a very sincere brother - anyway, it was all of the Premillenialist goofy left behind stuff that I was raised on, that was actually worse on abusing me mentally and spiritually than the whole eternal hell stuff 'cause it still bottomlined in a message of abandonment if you weren't up to par in your own strength. And particularly Scarlett's and the Concordant have been really helpful in getting me out of Premillenialism and a multitude of other misreadings of Revelation.
[As I don't know who has/hasn't read my previous comments on other threads, I favor Postmillenialism now, which I'd never heard of as a distinct theological perspective until this year although everything that I was saying since last year wound up being specifically that. Seems the most Biblically consistent and enriches my pre-UR and present UR beliefs on dozens of different levels.]
What's funny is that apart from the obvious ET nonsense (i.e. eternal torment) and the premillenialist (i.e. "left behind") nonsense, the Scarlett's translation has actually been sorta aligning the book of Revelation for me almost the way that Marilyn Hickey would teach it. Nearly mailed her a copy of the translation the first time I read through it and it seemed to deeply favor her interpretation of the same story essentially being told three different times. I never expected for it to click in that way. Although as a Postmillenialist I obviously read Revelation 19 differently, as the spiritual battle that brings about the conversion of Israel and not as the literal, bodily Second Coming so soon in history.
No matter whether you prefer and/or deeply favor KJV, NKJV, NASB, or some other translation that's not classified as one of the literals, I think that it would be deeply instructive for anyone to take a particular favorite New Testament epistle in one of the literals, like the Concordant, Scarlett's, or Young's, and spend quality time rereading that whole epistle over and over and over and over and over again from one of the literals like that. The Concordant has been very deeply illuminating for me in Ephesians and Revelation so far.
NASB (Updated Edition) though, seems the best translation of the book of Philemon, but don't get me started on Philemon 'cause there's enough material there for that book to have it's own entire discussion board. William Barclay's commentary will give you enough of a hint/taste of what I'm talking about if anybody's just seen my comment on Philemon and is like "really??"
