NRSV - in action!

[Joel_Tunnah]

I attended a Reform Church in America (RCA) service this past sunday, out of curiosity. The sermon was about how you have to see God in the ordinary (good), and an example of this was Isaiah 7:14 (huh?!?!?), because in their awful translation (NRSV) it says that a “young woman” will give birth, etc.
The pastor then said that a “vigin birth” was as absurd then as it is now.

Is this guy unusual in the Reform world? How do protestants reconcile this type of view with the facts that the King James and Geneva bibles said “vigin” in Isaiah 7:14, and contained the apocrypha, etc…

 

[mschrank]

I know the LXX says parthenos, i.e., a virgin, dunno about the Hebrew.

Just look it up in an interlinear bible, do a google for it.

 

[Joel_Tunnah]

Sorry I wasn’t clear. I understand the issues surrounding the transltion of “almah” and “parthenos”, etc.
But it seems to me that there are theological implications to saying that the Incarnation born of a virgin was nonsense.

Also, I know the Reformed church uses the Apostle’s Creed, which reads:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,

So, obviously this pastor is outside the bounds of his own church’s belief structure. So, I ask the protestants here, how do you reconcile Isaiah 7:14 as “young woman”, with the Apsotle’s Creed? Or with the bibles of the Reformation?

 

[jrsmith]

I believe the NRSV used the hebrew masoretic text for the old testament…which translates the hebrew word “young woman”. If they had used the septuagint to translate the old testament, it would have been “virgin”.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

I believe the NRSV used the hebrew masoretic text for the old testament…which translates the hebrew word “young woman”. If they had used the septuagint to translate the old testament, it would have been “virgin”.

There is a whole thread on this very passage. BTW, the NJB also uses young woman and states in the note:

The GK is “the virgin”, however the Hebrew uses almah meaning either young girl or a young recently married woman. The LXX reflects an early jewish interpretation taken on by the evangelist.

So it appears young girl is the better translation, but it was understood by Matthew and probably other Jews of his day as being fufilled by Mary.

 

[Pwrlftr]

I attended a Reform Church in America (RCA) service this past sunday, out of curiosity. The sermon was about how you have to see God in the ordinary (good), and an example of this was Isaiah 7:14 (huh?!?!?), because in their awful translation (NRSV) it says that a “young woman” will give birth, etc.
The pastor then said that a “vigin birth” was as absurd then as it is now.

Is this guy unusual in the Reform world? How do protestants reconcile this type of view with the facts that the King James and Geneva bibles said “vigin” in Isaiah 7:14, and contained the apocrypha, etc…

Yup, he would be very unusual. Most of the reformed world is very conservative in it’s biblical exposition.

 

[Pwrlftr]

I attended a Reform Church in America (RCA) service this past sunday, out of curiosity. The sermon was about how you have to see God in the ordinary (good), and an example of this was Isaiah 7:14 (huh?!?!?), because in their awful translation (NRSV) it says that a “young woman” will give birth, etc.
The pastor then said that a “vigin birth” was as absurd then as it is now.

Is this guy unusual in the Reform world? How do protestants reconcile this type of view with the facts that the King James and Geneva bibles said “vigin” in Isaiah 7:14, and contained the apocrypha, etc…

I wasn’t there so I don’t know what his point was but a virgin birth is in fact absure, so absurd that only God could pull it off. I wasn’t there so I don’t have any idea what his point was.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I attended a Reform Church in America (RCA) service this past sunday, out of curiosity. The sermon was about how you have to see God in the ordinary (good), and an example of this was Isaiah 7:14 (huh?!?!?), because in their awful translation (NRSV) it says that a “young woman” will give birth, etc.
The pastor then said that a “vigin birth” was as absurd then as it is now.

Two points:​

• Of course it’s absurd - so is the Crucifixion. God uses what is absurd in man’s eyes to show forth His Wisdom: as St. Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 1.
• Alma in Isa. 7.14 means “young woman”. It does not mean “virgin” - betulah means virgin - & it would have obscured the meaning of Isa 7.14 its immediate contet for the Hebrew to have been translated as “virgin”. The Christological meaning of Isaiah 7.14 noticed in Matt. 1.23 does not destroy the immediate reference of Isaiah 7.14 to events in Isaiah’s own time - I don’t think there were any Assyrians in Palestine when Jesus was born; but Isaiah refers to them in his prophetic words - he had good reason to.
• The only fault of the NRSV in Isaiah 7.14 is that it has translated the Hebrew correctly, rather than imposing a Christian meaning which the text does not have until it is seen as applicable to Jesus. Which did not happen for over 700 years after Isaiah’s time. Translators have to translate the text before them - not give it a meaning it does not have. For JWs to impose their doctrine on a text is wrong - & that is still wrong if anyone else does it.
  Is this guy unusual in the Reform world? How do protestants reconcile this type of view with the facts that the King James and Geneva bibles said “vigin” in Isaiah 7:14, and contained the apocrypha, etc…

 

[Joel_Tunnah]

Alma in Isa. 7.14 means “young woman”. It does not mean “virgin”

In the 10th century Masoretic Text. This version of the Hebrew scriptures also has this:

Psalm 22
17 For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me, like a lion, my hands and feet.

So much for accuracy.
Fortunately we have older, and more reliable manuscripts such as the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls, both of which confirm ‘virgin’, and the true rendering of psalm 22:17

 

[Cranch]

• The only fault of the NRSV in Isaiah 7.14 is that it has translated the Hebrew correctly, rather than imposing a Christian meaning which the text does not have until it is seen as applicable to Jesus. Which did not happen for over 700 years after Isaiah’s time. Translators have to translate the text before them - not give it a meaning it does not have.

“It is interesting that the translators of the Septuagint took the thought of the Hebrew passage and translated it into a Greek word for “virgin.” Since they worked about two hundred years before Christ was born, then the translators of the Septuagint could not have been trying to “fit” scripture to a Christian viewpoint, but instead were merely giving the correct translation for the passage.”

The quote is from this article, which I found very interesting. Although the authors say the Greek parthenos “generally means virgin”, they do not in fairness point out the Septugint apparently uses this term in Genesis 34 when referring to Dina after her rape. However I still find the article to be a worthwhile survey of the issue. For example, they quote another author who states “there is no place among the seven occurrences of ‘almah in the Old Testament where the word is clearly used of a woman who was not a virgin.” Not definitive evidence, perhaps, but interesting nevertheless. Also touched on is the implausibility of the commonplace occurrence of a “young woman” giving birth serving as a sign from God. Here is the immediate context of the word (from the Septuagint):
10 And the Lord again spoke to Achaz, saying, 11 Ask for thyself a sign of the Lord thy God, in the depth or in the height. 12 And Achaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. 13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; is it a little thing for you to contend with men? and how do ye contend against the Lord? 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.

 

[vern_humphrey]

There are several problems with this almah-parthenos argument.

1. It assumes Matthew took a collection of scriptural prophesies and wrote a gospel around them. And that’s absurd. Matthew did not write around prophesies – he wrote a straighforward gospel and inserted prhphesies where he thought appropriate.
2. Matthew knew Mary and Jesus personally. Matthew did not think Mary was a virgin because of the prophesy in Isaiah 7.14, he inserted the reference to Isaiah 7.14 because he knew she was a virgin.
3. The translation of “almah” as “parthenos” is not an error. The LXX was translated by scholars who spoke Greek as a mother tongue and were recognized experts in Hebrew. There is no known instance of “almah” being applied to a young girl who was not a virgin.
4. And finally, the argument is a scriptural no-no – it assumes an error on the part of an inspired writer in a matter directly bearing on his intent.