The profusion of Bible translations in our time comes down to a basic problem of translation: there is no such thing as a direct translation. Whenever you translate from one language to another, you have to ascertain the meaning of the original statement and then translate that meaning as precisely as possible into another language. How you ascertain the meaning of the original statement is influenced by who you are: your level of fluency in that language, your cultural background, your own beliefs, and the beliefs that you already have about a text, to name a few. Translators often read a text in the original language and decide that other translations do not capture what they believe is the truest meaning of the original text.
We can see this by comparing translations of the Song of Songs. The translation by Ariel and Chana Bloch tells the story of a sexually charged relationship between a young man and woman. The text is full of imagery which refers to sexuality and fertility. This translation stands at odds with the more sterile version in the King James version of the Bible, whose translators came to the text with the understanding that the story is actually an allegory of the loving relationship between the Church and God.
Because the ancient near Eastern languages of the original texts of the Bible are so different from English, there are many different ways to interpret and translate them. Each translation may be useful in its own way, and it's important to honor that this diversity of translations provides that many more opportunities for readers to develop their own relationship with the text.
