For me it's Douay-Rheims, the olde timey spellings are a real drag at first, but really immerse you after a while.
mom says she won't let me have more tendies if i don't read
The community aspect of studying the Bible is very important for those who are actually getting into it. It gives support from both people on your level and above your level, plus someone to talk to about trying to understand it.
Which is why I'd advise against the KJV, Catholic or Protestant. If you already know that language is fungible and don't want to learn classical languages, why torture yourself reading something written in English people no longer speak?
Because the Bible was written by humans over a long period of time. It's been rewritten and changed several times due to various political motivations throughout history. Books have been added and removed and generally there's a lot more to the bible and its history than just the new testament or the King James Bible.
From my understanding the OSB‘s OT is a modified version of the NKJV that only partially updates it to match the Septuagint. Same with the NT which uses the Textus Receptus rather than the full Byzantine consensus available nowadays (still better than most of the English bibles and the commentary and such are good additions (though I know more thorough church father commentary compilations exist)). Anyone who looks at this reasonably (what Bible did the early Christians use and what did the NT reference for the OT) would favor the Septuagint over the perverted Masoeretic text so that’s definitely the right direction. Also any English Bible for liturgical use and such has to be based in the KJV because those are the nominal translations we are familiar with (I.e., some Bibles change the names to better match the original language but that just adds needless confusion over keeping the historical anglicizations) and we associate that era of English with a high and reverentially tone. The best I’ve found is a modified form of the KJV OT by Micheal Asser, and the EOB based on the Patriarchal text for the NT.
OP, I'm late to this but want to add that I concur with these two. Study bibles in general are great because they give added context, OSB includes the Catholic deuterocanonicals as well the Orthodox ones. From there, you can look at additional theological writings from the Church Fathers being anontated.
