…2) The newest version of the NAB has changed the reference to Mary from " virgin " to " young woman "
how, why, and what effect?
Isaiah 7:14, in the Hebrew OT, used the Hebrew word for “young woman”. However, when the Jews translated their Hebrew Scriptures into Greek - more than 200 years before Jesus was born - they used the Greek word for “virgin” to translate the sense of the Hebrew word.
So in translating Isaiah, it depends upon whether the translator/s decide to follow the Jewish Hebrew text (young woman/maiden) or the Jewish Greek text (virgin)
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In regards to the citation of this Isaiah verse in Matthew 1:23, my understanding is that the oldest gospel texts (which are in Greek) follow the Septuagint which uses the Greek word for “virgin”.
Here is a section from St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Catena Aurea” on Mt. 1:23, which cites the Isaiah verse. (Underlining mine)
Aquinas is quoting St. Jerome (340-420AD) who wrote:
Jerome.
Since it is introduced in the Prophet by the words
The Lord Himself shall give you a sign, it ought to be something new and wonderful. But if it be, as the Jews will have it, a young woman, or a girl shall bring forth, and not a virgin, what wonder is this, since these are words signifying age and not purity? Indeed the Hebrew word signifying
Virgin (Bethula) is not used in this place, but instead the word ‘Halma’, which except the LXX (Septuagint) all render ‘girl’. But the word ‘Halma’ has a twofold meaning; it signifies both ‘girl’, and ‘hidden’; therefore ‘Halma’ denotes not only ‘maiden’ or ‘virgin’, but ‘hidden’, secret’; that is, one never exposed to the gaze of men, but kept under close custody by her parents. In the Punic tongue also, which is said to be derived from Hebrew sources, a virgin is properly called ‘Halma’. In our tongue also ‘Halma’ means holy; and the Hebrews use words of nearly all languages; and as far as my memory will serve me, I do not think I ever met with Halma used of a married woman, but of her that is a virgin, and such that she be not merely a virgin but in the age of youth; …
