Since I can't read the ancient languages directly, I use a lot of secondary sources, such as writings and reports by scholars.  Meta-research, if you will.  I don't find the language used any translation I have seen objectionable, most of those things have long since been noted (the three Greek words for love, for example), I just grow and learn from the Scriptures when I understand more context, about how and when they were written. 

For example, before the Israelites went to Egypt the first time, all pyramids were crooked.  Afterwards, all pyramids were square/true.  So the Israelites probably brought geometry to Egypt (from Babylon area?).  Did not jive with my conception of Sunday school cartoons of rustic goat herders.  Not in the Bible, not necessary (to me) to understand the core messages in the Bible.  But when I wanted more depth, it's fascinating detail to explain the depth of knowledge of those people at that time.

I am in the Google generation, so I just hop on the internet and start searching away, hopping from link to link, read this reference to that story about this verse, read the verse in two or three different translations, look up the etymology, look up a map, look up a distantly referenced historical figure and separately read about the culture, accomplishments, and specific actions of that figure, what other primary sources inform that historical figure (different texts/writings than the Bible), what else was happening in the world at that time in other geographies than those specifically mentioned at that point in the Bible.  I also try to find a contrarian point of view if I can. 

I would not call what I am doing real scholarship, I am just grabbing snippets here and there from others who are real scholars.

I first couldn't figure out what this Bible study was referring day, day 1 minute 1, when they challenged my previous conception of Genesis, which is what send me on this long, continual Google search for more info.