The Greek Word for Virgin Changed One Verse in Isaiah
Early Christians saw prophecy where Jewish scholars saw mistranslation, and a separate difference over added books shaped Catholic and Protestant canons.
en.wikipedia.org · SeptuagintIn most Christian Bibles, Isaiah 7:14 says a virgin will conceive. In Jewish scripture, the same verse speaks of a young woman who will conceive.
The Hebrew word is almah, which means young woman. When ancient translators rendered the Hebrew Bible into Greek, they used parthenos, which means virgin.
That Greek version is known as the Septuagint. Greek was the common language of the eastern Roman Empire, so early Christians relied on the Greek Bible, and New Testament writers quoted it freely when citing Jewish scripture.
To those early Christians, virgin looked like a direct prophecy of Jesus. The Greek translation was made before his birth, so it seemed to point toward him more clearly than later Hebrew copies.
Mainstream rabbinic Judaism rejected the Greek text as scripture. One reason was that it often differed from the Hebrew text, and translations at times seemed to miss Hebrew idiom, with Isaiah 7:14 cited as a leading example.
Early Christians took the Greek's older date and its fit with Christian readings as proof that Jewish scribes had altered the Hebrew to make it less Christian.
Irenaeus, an early church writer, blamed late Jewish changes for the difference. He said the Greek clearly identified a virgin, while later Jewish translators rendered the word as young woman.
The Ebionites, a group he regarded as heretical, used the young-woman reading to argue that Joseph was Jesus's biological father.
Jerome, the scholar who produced the Latin Vulgate Bible, complicated the story. He noted that some New Testament quotations appear in Hebrew but not in Greek, and he translated most of the Old Testament from Hebrew rather than Greek.
Separate from the Isaiah wording is a second split over which books belong. The Greek Bible included extra books and additions, and while Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons kept most of them, Protestant Bibles after the Reformation generally followed the shorter Jewish canon.
Questions people ask
What does the Hebrew word almah actually mean?
Almah generally means a young woman of childbearing age, without stating whether she is a virgin. A different Hebrew word, bethulah, more explicitly means virgin, which is why the Greek choice was disputed.
What is the Septuagint?
It is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, begun in Egypt centuries before Jesus. Early Christians adopted it as their Old Testament, and its books and wordings still shape Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles.
Why do Catholic and Protestant Bibles have different books?
Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments largely follow the longer Greek tradition, including books such as Tobit, Judith, and Maccabees. Most Protestant Old Testaments follow the shorter Hebrew canon and either omit those books or place them separately as Apocrypha.
Did Jewish scholars deliberately change the Hebrew text?
Most modern scholars say no. They see differences as the result of varied Hebrew source texts, translation choices, and centuries of copying. The idea of deliberate alteration was an early Christian argument, not the current scholarly consensus.