Questions regarding the bible being "inaccurate"

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Hello,

My name is Chris and I am an avid listener of Catholic Answers Live and also do some apologetics research on my own. I also have a Catholic Podcast that I do with my wife called Life on Fire that you can find at lifeonfire.org .

Now, while I am a Confirmation instructor at my parish and try to keep up on my faith and do try to learn more regarding apologetics over time, I hit a question with a co-worker that I could not easily offer a rebuttal for.

He claimed that he saw a History Channel or Discovery special in which “experts” found the “oldest possible” versions of New Testament biblical texts and found there to be over 100,000 translation errors. These including the word “Virgin”. He said that in the program they explained that the word was not actually virgin and was a gross mistranslation in regard to reference to Mary.

Now I did try to explain that it is difficult to make accurate translations from any language as sometimes they have more/less words in regards to certain topics. For example Eros (Love) and Agape(also Love), and I also tried to explain that the text Jesus referring to his “Mother and Brothers” does no mean literal brothers but, more like cousins or kin as Aramaic did not have a word for those relatives. However, he claimed that according to these “experts” Christ himself referred to a younger brother and an older brother both born of Joseph and Mary.

Now, I don’t trust Discovery networks as much as I can throw them, but, I had no answer that would satisfy him on this.

Also, on a side not he mentioned that many scholars now account Christ being born in the spring and he wanted to know why it is that we celebrate in winter if Christmas likely happened in the spring and also why we adopted so many German/Pagan traditions with it. I did intend to try and answer this for him but, didn’t have enough time at the end of my shift. I figured I could get a more definitive answer to give him here.

God Bless,
Chris

Note:
I did post this in the Ask an Apologist forum but, also figured I might be able to get some good answers here as well. Not to mention the Apologists are quite busy and may not get to my question personally.
 
I can answer as to why we celebrate Christ’s birth in December.

It is not a birthday party (like on the day he was born). It is a celebration of the incarnation of God. SO we celebrate it when the days are starting to grow longer in the northern hemisphere, ie when the light of the world is beginning to show Himself to mankind.

We don’t know when He was born, nobody particularly cared in those days, they did not have birthday parties. The months were not fixed. So what day would you say he was born if you are living under a calendar that has 12, sometime 13 months in a year. Suppose you were born in the 4 day of the 13th month. And there was only a 13th month every few years (depending upon Caesar and when he decided they needed another month to align the LUNAR monthly calendar with the SOLAR yearly calendar).
 
Thanks Evan,

That helps on the Christmas thing. I also looked up some other resources on that as well. However, still haven’t found the time to do research on the other issues yet. Maybe tomorrow…
 
n which “experts” found the “oldest possible” versions of New Testament biblical texts and found there to be over 100,000 translation errors. These including the word “Virgin”. He said that in the program they explained that the word was not actually virgin and was a gross mistranslation in regard to reference to Mary.
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Oh those experts. Has anyone else noticed that the History and Discovery channels seem to find mostly experts who are anti-Christian?

However, to an extent, I believe it is correct to say that there are many–no one could give an exact number–of problems with biblical translations. That’s not because the bible is so full of errors, however, just that it’s blasted difficult to come up with a translation that everyone likes. The majority of the “errors” are in punctuation. Does this word deserve a comma or not? Is this word to be translated in present or past tense? That sort of thing.

The word “virgin” is a good example. Yes, it is now clear that a more accurate translation might be “maiden”; that is, an young, unmarried woman. But is virgin really an error? Or does the word convey the truth in a different way?

I have just finished reading a number of books about how the bible was formed. For close to four hundred years, before there was a set canon, people relied on the church and the bishops to tell them the tradition which Christ passed on. Paul talks about this tradition, 1 Clement does too, and Ignatius’ letters.

Blessings, Anne
 
ctlw83 said:
Hello,

My name is Chris and I am an avid listener of Catholic Answers Live and also do some apologetics research on my own. I also have a Catholic Podcast that I do with my wife called Life on Fire that you can find at lifeonfire.org .

Now, while I am a Confirmation instructor at my parish and try to keep up on my faith and do try to learn more regarding apologetics over time, I hit a question with a co-worker that I could not easily offer a rebuttal for.

He claimed that he saw a History Channel or Discovery special in which “experts” found the “oldest possible” versions of New Testament biblical texts and found there to be over 100,000 translation errors.
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Errors - or textual variants ? They are not the same thing.

There are thousands upon thousands of textual variants - not surprisingly, as there are about 5,000 Greek manuscripts (including fragments) of the NT or of parts of it: as well as citations & quotations in later writers; not to mention versions in other languages.

But a variant in a text may or may not be, or be based on, an error in translation.
These including the word “Virgin”. He said that in the program they explained that the word was not actually virgin and was a gross mistranslation in regard to reference to Mary.
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If the reference to Isaiah 7.14, almah does not mean virgin - that is a perfectly fair observation. If Isaiah had wanted to say “a virgin…”, he had the word bethulah ready to hand. He did not use it - nor is there any reason for him to have done so. Isaiah 7.14 is not talking about the Incarnation, it’s talking about the political situation of Isaiah’s own time, & how King Ahaz of Judah should respond to it.​

Matthew’s Gospel applies Isaiah 7.14 to the birth of Jesus, relying on the Greek translation of the book of Isaiah, which is not always accurate: the LXX (= “the version of the Seventy” - the version or versions made in Alexandria beween about 280 & 130 B.C.) translates almah by parthenos, which does mean “virgin”. The Gospel applies the Greek translation to the circumstances of the birth of Jesus, as He is seen by Matthew (or by the Christianity he represents) as fulfilling the words in Isaiah 7.14.

It does not follow that, because Matthew saw those words as a fulfilment of Isaiah’s words, Isaiah must have meant them as a long-range prediction of what Matthew saw them as meaning. Isaiah’s meaning, & what Matthew saw in it, should not be confused.
Now I did try to explain that it is difficult to make accurate translations from any language as sometimes they have more/less words in regards to certain topics. For example Eros (Love) and Agape(also Love), and I also tried to explain that the text Jesus referring to his “Mother and Brothers” does no mean literal brothers but, more like cousins or kin as Aramaic did not have a word for those relatives. However, he claimed that according to these “experts” Christ himself referred to a younger brother and an older brother both born of Joseph and Mary.

Now, I don’t trust Discovery networks as much as I can throw them, but, I had no answer that would satisfy him on this.
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  • You’re asking for us
  • to comment on your version
  • of a friend’s version
  • of what yet others said 🙂
  • but without knowing what they did in fact say, one cannot really comment on it usefully :); it’s like playing Chinese Whispers, but more serious. So it would help to know what exactly was said, if you can find out.
Also, on a side not he mentioned that many scholars now account Christ being born in the spring and he wanted to know why it is that we celebrate in winter if Christmas likely happened in the spring and also why we adopted so many German/Pagan traditions with it. I did intend to try and answer this for him but, didn’t have enough time at the end of my shift. I figured I could get a more definitive answer to give him here.

God Bless,
Chris

Note:
I did post this in the Ask an Apologist forum but, also figured I might be able to get some good answers here as well. Not to mention the Apologists are quite busy and may not get to my question personally.
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Awesome information, THANKS! I’m going to look around and see if I can find exact references and “proofs” for these claims so that we can all make a better assessment of what is being spoken about. You have given me something to go off of though.

However, this does not mean, at least to me, that Mary was not a virgin as the early Church fathers made many references to that being the case, or so I have heard many-a-time on Catholic Answers Live.

I am delving to apologetics on my own, but, it does take time. After all, it is said, “to know a little about the Catholic faith takes 50 years, more or less” There is so much to learn…
 
ctlw83 said:
Hello,

My name is Chris and I am an avid listener of Catholic Answers Live and also do some apologetics research on my own. I also have a Catholic Podcast that I do with my wife called Life on Fire that you can find at lifeonfire.org .

Now, while I am a Confirmation instructor at my parish and try to keep up on my faith and do try to learn more regarding apologetics over time, I hit a question with a co-worker that I could not easily offer a rebuttal for.

He claimed that he saw a History Channel or Discovery special in which “experts” found the “oldest possible” versions of New Testament biblical texts and found there to be over 100,000 translation errors. These including the word “Virgin”. He said that in the program they explained that the word was not actually virgin and was a gross mistranslation in regard to reference to Mary.

Now I did try to explain that it is difficult to make accurate translations from any language as sometimes they have more/less words in regards to certain topics. For example Eros (Love) and Agape(also Love), and I also tried to explain that the text Jesus referring to his “Mother and Brothers” does no mean literal brothers but, more like cousins or kin as Aramaic did not have a word for those relatives. However, he claimed that according to these “experts” Christ himself referred to a younger brother and an older brother both born of Joseph and Mary.

Now, I don’t trust Discovery networks as much as I can throw them, but, I had no answer that would satisfy him on this.
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Did you see the show in question?

If not, ask your co-worker if they have a copy of it that you could watch so that you can better understand the issue and possibly be able to answer their questions better.

It sounds like it could be interesting to watch like that “tomb” of Christ show was (was I the only person to think that guys ideas were a joke?).
Also, on a side not he mentioned that many scholars now account Christ being born in the spring and he wanted to know why it is that we celebrate in winter if Christmas likely happened in the spring and also why we adopted so many German/Pagan traditions with it. I did intend to try and answer this for him but, didn’t have enough time at the end of my shift. I figured I could get a more definitive answer to give him here.
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God Bless,
Chris
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Apparently the festival of “Christmas” (or Yuletide) has been celebrated in various ways by different cultures since around 4-6 thousand years before the birth of Christ. From what I understand, the idea behind making Christs birth coincide with these festivals was to essentially usurp these festivals and convert people who celebrated them to christianity.

Over time, many of the festival customs were intergrated into the holy day of Christs birth (apparently putting a tree in your home dates back to Ancient Egypt along with decorating the house, the Yuletide log was I think a Scandinavian custom and pretty much all cultures had a feast and exchanged gifts) until eventually the festivals were completly intergrated into Christs Mass.

From memory, some people concluded that Christ was born around the 16th of April.
 
Ok,

So from everything I have learned here and from other websites here is what I came up with:

In Isaiah the translation was, as you said, not “Virgin” but, young woman and in fact may have not even referred to the future Christ prophesies. This has actually been corrected in many Bible translations at this point. However, Mark, when he wrote the Gospel used the word Virgin when quoting Isaiah which may have been for multiple reasons.
First, there were several versions of the Septuagint going around at the time that the Gospel was written. There were some translations at that time that did translate Isaiah’s language as being “Virgin” as opposed to young woman.
Also, Mark may have taken what Isaiah said and applied it to Jesus. Basically, he was taking an older saying and changing it to reflect what actually happened. Simply put, Mary did have a virgin birth and he simply interpreted Isaiah to be referring to this.
I will also say that the Greek translation of Matthew is correct as it is what he actually wrote.
However, I will add that these claims do not affect other New Testament scriptures including the Annunciation where the angel appears to Mary and tells her she will conceive and she says “How can this be, I have known no man?”. This is also a correct translation, again implying that this still can indeed be the case

I also printed out tracts about Mary’s perpetual virginity and Jesus’s “Brethren or Brothers” to go over. I think Jimmy Aikin (sorry if I mis-spelled) has some better stuff to say on the topics than I can.

Thanks again for all of your help and I will continue to visit here and to learn more.

God Bless,
Chris
 
Discovery Channel, History Channel, and The National Geographic Channel, are simply not reliable sources for information on Christianity.

They take every opportunity to attack it, and have absolutely no problem presenting only one side of an issue. These are the three channels that re-animate the lifeless corpses of the “Da Vinci Code” and “Tomb of Jesus” every Easter and Christmas like clockwork.

They’ve got Elaine Pagels and Dominic Crossan on speed-dial.
 
The word often translated as “Virgin” in Hebrew is ALMA…that’s the word that appears in IS 7:4. STRICTLY speaking, it does translate as maiden…with a maiden…“virginity is implied.” A similar example is the German word for virgin, jungfrau, the LITERAL translation is Young Woman (or maiden), but this is the term most often applied to a young german woman WHO HAS NOT HAD SEX. Kids, translation is as much art as science.
 
Ah, so “young woman” or “maiden” has implied purity to it. However, I am sure that the person I am discussing this will claim that is a cop-out or something. I will mention it when I talk to him about it though.

Again, the only thing I like Discovery Channel for is Mythbusters. I did like Monster House and Monster Garage but, those are gone now.
 
ctlw83 said:
Ah, so “young woman” or “maiden” has implied purity to it. However, I am sure that the person I am discussing this will claim that is a cop-out or something. I will mention it when I talk to him about it though.

Again, the only thing I like Discovery Channel for is Mythbusters. I did like Monster House and Monster Garage but, those are gone now.
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Laudatur Iesus Christus.

I do not understand the dispute over the Septuagint’s translation. The verse reads:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel," (Isaiah 7:14 (Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition)).

The question presents itself, what exactly would the “sign” be if it was a “young woman” who conceived? Is there any more commonplace event than a young woman conceiving?

On the other hand, one should be cautious in supposing that St. Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah could be mistaken. Remember that Jesus specifically explained to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus how to read the Old Testament and to understand its references to Him: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him,” (Lk 24:27). So, besides being directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, St. Matthew’s opinion of how to read Isaiah is likely to directly reflect the Savior’s own instruction on this matter.

Hence, St. Matthew’s interpretation should correct our reading of Isaiah, rather than relying on "current scholarship’s” assumptions about the scope of meaning of a particular Hebrew word, in Isaiah’s lifetime, to dispute Isaiah’s word choice. Remember there were no dictionaries tracking the vagaries of definitions to let us know what the “common term” for “virgin” was during that decade. On the other hand, we do know what God meant to say, since the Holy Spirit explained that to us through St. Matthew.

Spiritus Sapientiae nobiscum.

John Hiner
 
No one really knows when Jesus was born yet everyone likes to speculate. The Church picked December 25 to celebrate the birth of Jesus not because of any speculation as to when Jesus was actually born.

Instead, the Church used Easter Sunday as the starting point for its liturgical calendar and worked backwards from there to set the date for Christmas. Since we do not know exactly when Jesus was actually born this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and it makes good sense in the liturgical calendar and for establishing the yearly schedule of scriptural readings.

I hope this helps.
 
John_Hiner said:
On the other hand, one should be cautious in supposing that St. Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah could be mistaken. Remember that Jesus specifically explained to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus how to read the Old Testament and to understand its references to Him: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him,” (Lk 24:27). So, besides being directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, St. Matthew’s opinion of how to read Isaiah is likely to directly reflect the Savior’s own instruction on this matter.

Hence, St. Matthew’s interpretation should correct our reading of Isaiah, rather than relying on "current scholarship’s” assumptions about the scope of meaning of a particular Hebrew word, in Isaiah’s lifetime, to dispute Isaiah’s word choice. Remember there were no dictionaries tracking the vagaries of definitions to let us know what the “common term” for “virgin” was during that decade. On the other hand, we do know what God meant to say, since the Holy Spirit explained that to us through St. Matthew.
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Niiice! I’m going lift that and make it my own from now on! 👍
 
I guess that means that any young woman cannot be a virgin when the word “virgin” is allegedly not used to describe them. Can you see the insanity in this?

Placing words above realities is bible worship.
 
Wiki has quite a bit on this subject and can direct you to other websites as well. Sometimes I think we get bogged down in the minutia of what is really only of interest to the expert biblical scholar. The real point of the text is the wonderful stories it tells of a people’s relationship to God. That is of vastly more importance and the point actually.

Scholarship certainly has its place; it is my hobby, but time and again, we see people getting their knickers twisted over these issues of translation while seemingly missing the big picture. Scholarship seeks to broaden our understanding but it is technical in nature. Pastoral exegesis is an entirely different animal.
 
What a philosophy you have “spiritmeadow”! It’s not important how biblical verses are translated, it’s not important if any of the events in the bible happened or not, it’s not important who wrote the bible, or when…

You now say only the message is important. But after professing the above in your other posts all over this forum, I’m left wondering why you would believe even a single thing regarding the message of the bible. Afterall, according to you it could be mistranslated anonymous fiction written who-knows-when…
 
Joel_Tunnah said:
What a philosophy you have “spiritmeadow”! It’s not important how biblical verses are translated, it’s not important if any of the events in the bible happened or not, it’s not important who wrote the bible, or when…

You now say only the message is important. But after professing the above in your other posts all over this forum, I’m left wondering why you would believe even a single thing regarding the message of the bible. Afterall, according to you it could be mistranslated anonymous fiction written who-knows-when…
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Is there some significance to the “spiritmeadow” thing? All those things are important to one degree or another. To me as a serious student of the bible and attempting to be the same in theology, they are very important. Some are important to a degree, others I might find even essential.

I don’t say ONLY the message is important, but it would seem that the message is the point wouldn’t you say? Whether Isaiah was translated correctly or not (to make it more prophetic of Mary and Jesus) is less important. Are you aware that the OT was reshuffled from the original order to suggest a more flowing transition to the NT for instance?

I appreciate your concern that someone like myself cannot help but believe nothing if I don’t believe everything like yourself literally true. (I assume that is what you mean). However, I can assure you I am having no crisis in faith. You need not concern yourself with worry…🙂
 
John_Hiner said:
Laudatur Iesus Christus.

I do not understand the dispute over the Septuagint’s translation. The verse reads:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel," (Isaiah 7:14 (Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition)).The question presents itself, what exactly would the “sign” be if it was a “young woman” who conceived? Is there any more commonplace event than a young woman conceiving?
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Not as such, no - which is why Isa.7.14 needs to be read in context:​

  • Isa 7:1 In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzzi’ah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remali’ah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but they could not conquer it.
  • Isa 7:2 When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with E’phraim,” his heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.
  • Isa 7:3 And the LORD said to Isaiah, "Go forth to meet Ahaz, you and She’ar-jash’ub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field,
  • Isa 7:4 and say to him, 'Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remali’ah.
  • Isa 7:5 Because Syria, with E’phraim and the son of Remali’ah, has devised evil against you, saying,
  • Isa 7:6 “Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Ta’be-el as king in the midst of it,”
  • Isa 7:7 thus says the Lord GOD: It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.
  • Isa 7:8 For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. (Within sixty-five years E’phraim will be broken to pieces so that it will no longer be a people.)
  • Isa 7:9 And the head of E’phraim is Sama’ria, and the head of Sama’ria is the son of Remali’ah. If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.’"
  • Isa 7:10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz,
  • Isa 7:11 “Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”
  • Isa 7:12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.”
  • Isa 7:13 And he said, "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?
  • Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanu-el.
  • Isa 7:15 He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
  • Isa 7:16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.
  • Isa 7:17 The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that E’phraim departed from Judah–the king of Assyria."
    Isaiah was not predicting an event 700 years in the future -what possible use would that have been to a king of Judah in the eighth century, facing the political problems of the eighth century ? As useful as the idiotic idea that the author of Revelation 17 was predicting the condition of the Roman church to the Christians in the seven Churches of Asia Minor.
If the meaning of Isaiah 7.14 in its original context is ignored, the rest of the oracle of which it is a part becomes incoherent rubbish: there were no Assyrians, & no threat from Damascus, at the birth of Christ. To rip verses out of their setting is is no way to interpret the texts 😦 - how is it respectful to the meaning of Scripture, if the Christological application in the NT, of a text taken from the OT, is made to crush the meaning out of the OT text in its original setting ?

This is the sort of vandalism Fundamentalism commits - it is so fixated on the inerrancy of the Bible, that the meaning of the Bible comes a very poor second; if it is considered at all.

…more]
 
…the rest]

To ignore what a text means before it is applied to Christ - & very little of the OT is applied to Him; so what is to happen to all of that ? - is to ignore the gradual character of revelation; & to overlook its relative character. Jesus spoke Aramaic rather than German, because Roman Palestine was not a Teutonic culture; He quoted the Torah rather than the D-R, because He did not live in an English-speaking Catholic culture. IOW, He was born into a specific cultural context - in that sense, the Incarnation is conditioned by the relative & contingent character of human existence in time & space.

Revelation develops, just as Jesus did, just as the Church does,just as we do. That the Bible is in some true sense the Word of God in no way alters or cancels its being equally truly the words of men. It is because it did not fall from Heaven, but grew up among men, over time, in a variety of environments, that the details of when & where & how & why the parts of what we now have as the Bible are so important. To overlook the setting of a prophetic oracle because one part of it is applied to Christ centuries later, wrongs the very meaning of the gospels that people are so keen to protect.
On the other hand, one should be cautious in supposing that St. Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah could be mistaken.
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Is that being said ? :confused:​

Remember that Jesus specifically explained to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus how to read the Old Testament and to understand its references to Him: “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him,” (Lk 24:27). So, besides being directly inspired by the Holy Spirit, St. Matthew’s opinion of how to read Isaiah is likely to directly reflect the Savior’s own instruction on this matter.

Hence, St. Matthew’s interpretation should correct our reading of Isaiah,
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That last line is a plea for intellectual suicide. :eek: :eek: :eek: 😦​

To be consistent, one would have to say that the Ugaritic line which contains all & only the words of Isaiah 7.14 (in Ugaritic, not Hebrew; & the Ugaritic text is earlier by centuries than Isaiah) is prophesying the birth of Christ.

From that it is a small step to trashing the whole of pre-Christian antiquity, in order to “correct” the ideas of those cultures. The coming of Christ fulfils them all, but not in that way; it does not follow from His fulfilling them that they have no meanings of their own. One would have to “correct” the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil, to make it self-consciously Christological; it has often been treated as a “pagan” anticipation of Christ. This would vandalise Virgil’s meaning as surely as the Fundamentalist understanding of Isaiah 7.14 vandalises the meaning of Isaiah’s oracle.

Indeed, if one is prepared to trash all of antiquity, there is no reason not to go further & make all the sciences fulfilments of Christ by destroying their autonomy too. That would make grace the destroyer of nature, & Christ into a Juggernaut. Entities outside the gospels - cultures, religions, texts, the sciences - have their own meanings & values in time & space, & they don’t manifest the fullness of Christ by being flattened into having a single ahistorical & context-free meaning. Creatures are fulfilled, not by being destroyed, but by being given their own place relative to Christ.

hope.edu/academic/religion/bandstra/RTOT/CH10/CH10_1B.HTM
rather than relying on "current scholarship’s” assumptions about the scope of meaning of a particular Hebrew word, in Isaiah’s lifetime, to dispute Isaiah’s word choice.
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That’s not being done, except by those who who insist Isaiah must refer to the birth of Jesus & nothing else. It’s no fault of the scholars that the word in Isa. 7.14 is alma, not bethulah. Beating up the Bible until it consents to supply the meanings one wants is typical of Fundamentalism; scholars are content to let Isaiah talk about what he was talking about - they have more faith in God’s abilty to look after the connections between Isaiah & Matthew than Fundamentalists.​

Remember there were no dictionaries tracking the vagaries of definitions to let us know what the “common term” for “virgin” was during that decade. On the other hand, we do know what God meant to say, since the Holy Spirit explained that to us through St. Matthew.

Spiritus Sapientiae nobiscum.

John Hiner
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Theology cannot do duty for history, which is why it is improper to talk about what “God meant”, rather than attending to what Isaiah’s oracle & Matthew’s pericope can be ascertained to mean. What God means is mediated, not given without mediation: & the Incarnation is the canonical instance of this. God speaks to human in human contexts - not outside them.​

 
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