When I'm doing scholarly work, I think that the New Revised Standard version for the Gospels and other Christian writings is hands-down the best option. Its tra

When I'm doing scholarly work, I think that the New Revised Standard version for the Gospels and other Christian writings is hands-down the best option. Its translations can be a bit stilted, since they try as hard as possible to go word-for-word with the original, but that's exactly what you want if you're trying to do a historical analysis. That said, I agree with your Hebrew teacher that it's not my top scholarly choice for the Hebrew bible. For that, I prefer the New Jewish Publication Society translation. Just as the NRSV, it's very easy to find with full scholarly commentary and without best-guess emendations (i.e., if the Hebrew makes no sense, or the meaning of a word has been forgotten, they will clearly mark it, rather than reaching to the Septuagint/Vulgate/Targum for a translation), but in my personal opinion, the NJPS translation is a bit more accurate.