Trout

Heard a theory once that the ancient hebrew word for 'young girl' was in fact virgin. Makes sense in a way but totally throws the whole virgin birth idea into the crapper if believed.

I've worked with translating poerty (amature mind you) from Japanese into English and let me tell you that considering all the nuances, symbolism, etc and having it make sense and mean the same from one language to another is not an easy task at all. It got me thinking about the translation of ancient Hebrew texts into modern English and what would likely be lost and/or changed in the process. Then consider the many other languages - Latin, French, Itallian, German, Arabic, etc, etc and from many different ages were involved in bringing the suposed "word of God" to our modern English speaking church.

My bet is that it is likely "slightly" different from the original meaning. Point being....if the virgin vs young girl example turned out to be true then many parts could basically be bull along with huge sections of modern Christian belief and ritual.

Instead of the 'word of God" what if you were reading and practicing the translation mistakes of some 7th century monk!

CX

That is at the heart of text criticism. I can't speak to the HB, but the NT is reasonably well-constructed as it existed by the 4th century at least when considering the the Greek Critical Text. Even so we should be cautious to equate translational judgement with "mistakes". Because there is generally no 1:1 correspondence between words, syntax and lexical units from one language to the next, a translator must decide a)what translation scheme to use and b)what the original intent is. It's very tricky business indeed.

spin

This is a definite xian blind spot. The Hebrew text clearly says "young girl" not "virgin". In fact close reading of the original tells you she is already expecting, so can't be a virgin, but a Greek translated it as "parthenos" which means both, though suggests more the notion of "virgin", so one can tell that those who formulated the virgin Mary syndrome used the Greek version.


spin

Madkins007

From what I can see, there are a lot of places this happens, and not only in the Bible.

Bible- the word for rope and camel are supposed to be very similar. Was it a rope or a camel in the proverbial 'eye of the needle'? Supposedly, 'like pulling a rope through the eye of a needle' is a common expression even today in the Middle East to describe something nearly impossible.

Other- In the Cinderella story, the original slippers were fur (vair), but the written stories went to glass (vere, or something like that)

Bible, Psalms- the 23rd Psalm- the overflowing cup bit- the word supposedly means more like filled to the very top, brimmingly full.

Many phrases in the OT are supposed to be idioms and translated awkwardly (and since some of them are parts of commonly cited contradictions, I think I'll skip them!)

Trout

Very interesting comments.

Soooo, if the virgin translation mistake is just that simple and it is considered to be a very significant miracle to so many (you should see the cheezy glowing Mary wall clocks in a market near me), why hasn't this been rectified?

I mean, of course churches hate to admit mistakes but come on.

spin

Honest, the Greek translator got it right. He caught the shade of meaning that reflected the text when he used "parthenos". The Greek translation is afterall supported by the nt. So it's gotta be right. If she's a young girl, she's almost certainly a virgin, right?


spin

Trout

Almost, nearly, close to certainly

Amlodhi

Hello Trout,

Along with all the other indications that the "young woman" of Isaiah 7:14 was not virgo intactus (or, at the very least, would soon not be), I have always thought that this passage should be viewed from the perspective of what Isaiah's audience would have understood him to say.

The reference was intended as a sign to Ahaz. Thus, if Isaiah's audience understood him to mean that a virgin would give birth, we are left with two implications:

1. A virgin didn't give birth in Ahaz's time; thus Isaiah's audience would have considered him to be a false prophet.

2. A virgin did give birth in Ahaz's time; thus Jesus' birth 7+ centuries later was a not-so-instant replay.

And again, this has nothing to do with whether Isaiah was foretelling a long-term prophecy or not. It is based strictly on what his audience would have understood him to say.


Amlodhi

Clutch

Indeed. Even were there something that merited description as a 1:1 correspondence between words, or any other linguistic unit smaller than the entire document, this would not settle the translational problem. It leaves open the tension between formal equivalence translation in terms of such correspondences, real or imagined, and translation that aims at recovering in the translating language the communicative effects that the original text (was intended to have?) had on its audience.

Translation is a spectacularly fraught enterprise; there is precisely zero reason to believe in a univocal sense of "getting it right". Among the more astonishing things about biblical literalism is its popularity with those who read the text only in (a) translation.

Madkins007

As for the persistance of the selected term (which is 'right' in some ways, possibly, but may not have been the best choice), there is a strong tendency amongst translaters to not stray too far from the King James choices without really strong evidence.

Some of this is tradition (it sounds/feels right using the comforting words of old), some of it is economics (people won't buy translations that seem wrong), etc., etc., etc.

However, many modern bibles do address a lot of these in marginal notes.