http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Bible-Berkeley-Version-English/dp/B001IZ3BKW/ref=s...
most translations are poor. many are pure bunk. you must stay away from the paraphrases like the living bible or good news for modern man. the NIV is just wrong.
i use the king james as a matter of standardization only. few will argue(among christians at least) that it is NOT scripture. some think KJV only is the god given translation and that it can only be interpreted using the websters dictionary of 1828. this, of course, simply removes the student away from the original tongues another degree of deviation.
the first step for anyone is to read the bible from cover to cover just like any book. dont study it - read it. get it in you. then you will know more about it than most professing christians. (i would lol but its really not funny at all)
i choose the modern language version for a couple of reasons. it is a fairly accurate translation and it is quite readable. read the story about it. when a man dedicates his life to something you at least know his heart was in it.
a king james version is also very helpful. along with the shakespearesque prose which is quite beautiful, other great, no, essential works are based upon it.
most notable of these is strongs exhaustive concordance and all of the other concordances and lexicons that use his numbering system. he gives every hebrew and greek word in the "received text" (textus receptus) its own number. his work also includes a decent dictionary of all those greek and hebrew words.
strongs is the bare bones minimum text for studying the bible. other works using that numbering system are also great. gesenius for hebrew and thayer for greek are the best lexicons. greek and hebrew concordances are quite revealing. they show where any particular original word is found regardless of how its translated. man have some liberties been taken and these books reveal that.
i also recommend the works of w e vine. this was another dedicated fellow who didnt let convention sway his thinking too much. for example, he states quite plainly that the greek word translated "cross" is not that at all. yes, all those crucifixes are, alas, a fabrication and actually a pagan symbol. this goes well with the pagan holidays of astarte and the saturnalia and the eating of swine but doesnt do much for ones understanding of the truth. the word is stauros which means an upright stake or pale. bottom line - imagining jesus on a cross is imagining a false image, and we know how the lord feels about false gods and false images.
in closing, get the old copy of the berkeley(named for the town, not the college). the new copies have been revised. god bless Gerrit Verkuyl. we all make mistakes, but in this world when you are completely ignored even in regards to your own work, you must have done something right:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Language_Bible