It all depends on what you mean.
The bibles in the KJV-SV-RSV-NRSV tradition tend to be literal and word-for-word, only modifying the original where necessary for understanding. Over time, however, not only have the meanings of English words changed (not to mention syntactical conventions), but more documents have been discovered giving us both a better text to work with and better understandings of the ancient languages. For all these reasons, the RSV and NRSV are far better than the KJV and SV. They still retain much of the phrasing of the KJV, but are far more accurate and readable. The biggest differece btw. RSV and NRSV is the move to gender neutral language. Does this clarify or obscure the meaning of the original? Hard to say. “Brothers”, for example, is changed to “neighbors” or “beloved” in the NRSV, wherever it is clear that the meaning includes women as well as men (always with a footnote giving the literal translation). If “brothers” makes you think only of men, then it fails to adequately convey the meaning of the original text. On the other hand, “neighbor” clearly has a different connotation. Which is more accurate? Depends. The key is to pay attention to the footnotes, so you get teh literal and the “intended” meaning.
Other translations, like the NIV, tend to be less word-for-word and more though-for-thought. This is more of an interpretation, but can also be more readable and give more of a sense of what reading the original language would feel like if you were intimately familiar with it. (They don’t “feel like” a translation.)
(As an example of the difficulties involved in making a “neutral” translation, if the text refers to the speaker being wounded in the “liver”, seen as the seat of emotion and feeling, do you translate “liver” or “heart”? Which one conveys the meaning of the original word" Both interpret it.)
Of the Catholic versions, the NAB is, I believe, quite literal, while the Jerusalem is more fluid. The New Jerusalem strikes a balance that many find both beautifuly readable and scholarly accurate.
Plus, there’s the JPS version–the Tanakh. This is the now-standard Jewish translation, which avoids Christian-influenced interpretations (obviously) and uses only the Masoretic text, the Hebrew used in public readings of the Torah since the Middle Ages. (This is the basic text for Christian translations, as its the earliest complete Hebrew text, but its usually compared with earlier translations like the LXX.)
Then you have the idiosyncratic single-author translations. Many of these are outdated, or have a specific agenda. The only one I’m really familiar with is Fox’s Books of Moses. Fox tries very hard to capture th rhythm and feel of the Hebrew, and he does a great job, IMO. You can actually “get the jokes” in a way that you can’t in a more straightforward translation. In some ways, it’s as close as you will come to reading the text in Hebrew without learning the language. But this true, precicely because it is highly interpreted, not despite it.
So what do you want? The feel, the content, the actual words (even if the meaning in context is different than the meaning of the closest English word, eg, liver)? The truth is that most of he major translations try to give you all of the above and don’t really vary much except in minor ways. Compare a few, and see which one you like. A good study bible (Oxford, Harper Collins, or New Interpreters) is a very good idea (these all use the NRSV, which should tell you something), and maybe one other one for comparison.
