YABT (Yet Another Bible Translation)

[Quoth]

Bible edits: Mary a 'virgin' or a 'young woman'? - US news - Life - Faith - msnbc.com

Thoughts?

Strangely, I find myself okay with it. Even if they change "virgin" to "young woman", so long as the fact that Mary was pregnant through the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18) is kept. That, I think specifies that Jesus' birth was supernatural, and it personifies Mary more correctly as a young woman. I think that we tend to glance over the fact that Mary was probably around fourteen at the time she gave birth to Jesus.

 

[benf]

Just the detail you put in the post makes me upset. The "young woman" birth?!

 

[Quoth]

Just the detail you put in the post makes me upset. The "young woman" birth?!

Well, yes and no. I think if we look at the totality of the details of Jesus' birth that were put into Scripture, we get the idea that she was both a virgin and a young woman. However, up until this translation, it seems that there's a large focus on her virginity, and very little (if any) on her youth.

I think it behooves us to focus on the big picture and all its little details, instead of getting a lopsided view. My concern with any translation is accuracy. Since the word used for "virgin" can also mean "young woman", we truly have no way of knowing what the writer was thinking when they penned it.

One thing I do in looking at a passage of Scripture is to look at all the different connotations of a word written. There are some words that are used in English, but I don't believe they convey the full meaning of the original Hebrew or Greek word. For instance, there's a word used in the Bible meaning "all" (as translated in English), but it can mean "some of all" (of a group of people, for example).

While that may seem like small potatoes in certain contexts, it can change things entirely in the way we view Scripture. Of course, I think it also helps to note that the sixty-six books of the "Protestant Bible" (for lack of a better phrasing) were put into the tome we know today by a council of fallible (albeit well-intentioned) men.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

Well, yes and no. I think if we look at the totality of the details of Jesus' birth that were put into Scripture, we get the idea that she was both a virgin and a young woman. However, up until this translation, it seems that there's a large focus on her virginity, and very little (if any) on her youth.

I think it behooves us to focus on the big picture and all its little details, instead of getting a lopsided view. My concern with any translation is accuracy. Since the word used for "virgin" can also mean "young woman", we truly have no way of knowing what the writer was thinking when they penned it.

It's true that Mary was both a young woman and a virgin, but it would make more sense to assume that Isaiah did mean the word "almah" to imply a virgin. The phrase "behold, a young woman shall conceive" wouldn't have really been significant enough to include had there not been more to it than that. Mary was probably around the same age as most women who were married and probably a lot of other mothers at the time.

 

[Quoth]

It's true that Mary was both a young woman and a virgin, but it would make more sense to assume that Isaiah did mean the word "almah" to imply a virgin. The phrase "behold, a young woman shall conceive" wouldn't have really been significant enough to include had there not been more to it than that. Mary was probably around the same age as most women who were married and probably a lot of other mothers at the time.

That's a good point I hadn't considered, and being a virgin certainly would've made her stand out from the crowd. So perhaps it would only make sense to change the phrasing to "young woman" in verses where the idea is obviously not to point to the fact she was a virgin. That having been said, I don't know if there are such verses.

 

[benf]

While that may seem like small potatoes in certain contexts, it can change things entirely in the way we view Scripture. Of course, I think it also helps to note that the sixty-six books of the "Protestant Bible" (for lack of a better phrasing) were put into the tome we know today by a council of fallible (albeit well-intentioned) men.

And the decision to not exclude the deutorocanonical books due to an inability to track down hebrew texts wasn't made by fallible men?

 

[timothyZ]

Bible edits: Mary a 'virgin' or a 'young woman'? - US news - Life - Faith - msnbc.com

Thoughts?

Strangely, I find myself okay with it. Even if they change "virgin" to "young woman", so long as the fact that Mary was pregnant through the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18) is kept. That, I think specifies that Jesus' birth was supernatural, and it personifies Mary more correctly as a young woman. I think that we tend to glance over the fact that Mary was probably around fourteen at the time she gave birth to Jesus.

They did this with the RSV back during the cold war. The RSV was actually labeled the Communist bible. lol

 

[Perhaps Today]

I would consider changing "virgin" to "young woman" to be tampering with Scripture which is warned against in Rev. 22:18-19. I will stick with my good old reliable KJV.

 

[crishmael]

I think that if you're going to go by the original Hebrew then it's accurate to write "young woman". Otherwise you're just insisting on Christian glosses on Hebrew Scriptures. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with it and people need to realize that the NT quotes from the OT were based upon the Septuagint so there will be differences when you use the Hebrew rather than the Greek translation text as the basis for your translation's OT.

Christians and their Bible wars...

 

[crishmael]

They did this with the RSV back during the cold war. The RSV was actually labeled the Communist bible. lol

Thankfully the ESV translators came along to de-commie it.