Why are there different translations of the Bible?
As Christianity spread into the western world, a Latin translation was needed as that was the written language of the minority who were literate. After the collapse of the Roman empire, Latin was only used by intellectuals and the church, but sadly the then powerful church chose not to encourage or allow translations of the Bible into the languages spoken by normal people in order to keep control of religious information.
Since that time many other translations (or versions) have been written to try to get the balance right between being faithful to the original Hebrew and Greek words, and at the same time communicate the original meaning, in a form of English which can be understood by today's reader.
So, basically, the reason there are diffferent translations of the Bible is that it was originally written in Hebrew and Greek, so needed translating, in our case, into English. And because of the different ways of structuring sentences (grammar) in different languages, and special ways of using words, it is possible to end up saying the same thing in different ways. If you've ever tried to learn another language, French for example, you will understand the difficulties!
