I was talking at work today with a female colleague who is a Christian. She wasn't aware of the very famous biblical mistranslation - the one concerning a virgin bearing a child.
In the hope of enlightening a few more people in this issue, here is a brief overview of how this came about. You can get a better description if you do a little search online or in books, including information on the exact words in question. It also really helps if you can read both Hebrew and Greek, but of course it's not essential in order to understand.
Basically, there was an intermediate step between the Hebrew translation of the bible and the English translation - into Greek. In the process of being translated - from Isaiah - 'young woman' was translated to the word that usually does mean virgin. The gospel-maker Mark then used this translation for the book in the New Translation, and gave birth (no pun intended) to the virgin birth myth.
If you find a decent modern bible you'll find that in Isaiah it talks of a child being born of a young woman, whereas in Mark it talks about a virgin.
That is our lesson for today. Enjoy.
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