Countless pastors have been asked that by their parishioners, and the vast majority have answered, "Yes, all the major versions can be trusted." Had they replied in the negative, the modern church would be in dire straits, since virtually none of its members can read the original scriptural languages. But in fact, at least with regard to the most frequently quoted texts, the modern versions have grossly misled the students of Scripture, making the recovery of the originally intended purpose of the Christian religion a difficult proposition indeed.
Of course, the translation of the vast majority of the Bible doesn't make much difference to anyone's doctrine or morals. One could eliminate entire books from the canon of Scripture (for example, Judges, a work nowhere quoted in the New Testament), and nothing in Christianity would change besides a few Sunday School lessons.
But in the case of frequently cited "proof texts," it only requires a dubious rendering of one key word to alter the message of countless sermons, and provide excuses for Christianity's critics to multiply their scorn. Many of these could have been recognized by a layman armed with an English concordance: aggelos, rendered "messenger" when it clearly refers to a human being but "angel" when the translator wishes it to be understood as a non-human; psuché, commonly translated "soul" but changed to "life" when it includes the physical aspects of existence; porneia, rendered "fornication" in the King James Version but altered without explanation to "sexual immorality" in modern texts; teleios, translated "perfect" in Matt. 5:48 as though part of a commandment which is impossible for any human to perform, but rendered "complete" in Phil. 3:15 in describing the senior members of a Pauline congregation.
The Christian Scriptures translation was produced to help overturn centuries of false textual traditions, in order to rediscover a good news which too many modern Christians have obscured or even lost altogether. Naturally, this version is no more infallible than any other, and proposed corrections by its readers are encouraged.
