Which version to use?

I've had an internal debate going on since I started BSF, and it's really bothering me.

The BSF lessons are written for use with the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. I have always used and been told that the King James Version (KJV) is THE version to use.

Well, I have looked at different versions of the Bible, and while the language is different, in general the meaning is pretty well the same in most of what I have looked at. One of the funniest instances and what prompted me to start wondering about this was in one of my BSF lessons. It asked for us to write a description of various things we had studied -- the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, etc. One of the things was the atonement cover.

Well, while I freely admit that I have been very neglectful of studying the Word, I also am blessed to have grown up in a church that covered a LOT of the Bible quite thouroughly. I had never heard of the atonement cover, though. I searched through the verses of the day's lesson trying to find mention of the atonement cover. Nothing. I read back to previous scripture, when the tabernacle was first described. Again, nothing.

Hmmm. So, I pulled out my laptop, hooked into the 'net, and went to biblegateway.com. I looked up the passage in the KJV, then converted it to the NIV version. Sure enough, there it was -- atonement cover. In my version it was the mercy seat.

That day I ordered a parallel KJV/NIV copy of the Bible.

I asked my mom this weekend her opinion of using a version of the Bible other than KJV. She said that she knows the Bible says to not change the Word -- that's why we shouldn't use a version that mis-translates what the Bible says in its meaning.

But the KJV is a translation of the Bible, too. How do we know it is THE correct translation? And if using only KJV for my daily lessons hinders me from grasping all of what the lesson teaches because of differences in language, how is that a good thing?

I love my KJV -- I adore the beauty of the language and the meaning behind the words, of course. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I have noticed, though, that the NIV is much more ... hmmm ... modern in its word choice. It makes for a much quicker read with higher retention.

So now I have this internal debate -- which version should I use? If I use only KJV, there are some problems with names, as in the example above. If I use only NIV, I have this weird I'm-gonna-be-struck-down-for-reading-this feeling.