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I have read from quite a few sources stating that there was a mistranslation in the Bible, calling Mary a "virgin" instead of a "young, marry-able woman". It would be interesting to know about such a big mistake in popular literature (that is, if it really is a mistake).

Edit:
Here are some sources, but I will look for the more reliable sources I read earlier after a night's sleep.
http://carm.org/isaiah-7-14-virgin
http://fuzzyquark.comxa.com/marynotavirgin.html

Christian
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RandomDuck.NET
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    You'll want Matthew 1:18-25. "1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, **before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost**. ... 1:23 **Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son**, and they shall call his name Emmanuel..." You're basically asking if that's an accurate translation. – John Lyon Aug 17 '12 at 02:52
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    Can you please include some of these sources so we can be sure of what you are asking. Your title seems to be asking about the virgin birth of Jesus, whereas your actual written question seems to be asking about the accuracy of the translation. Are you asking about the accuracy of the event or the accuracy of the translation? It's easier to answer if you are asking about a particular passage of the Bible and how accurate the translation is as opposed to proving an event happened. – going Aug 17 '12 at 03:00
  • @xiaohouzi79 I added some sources, but they weren't the originals. I'll add more tomorrow. – RandomDuck.NET Aug 17 '12 at 03:10
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    This is not appropriate for Skeptics, since it is about a religious belief, and is asking about religous source texts. Migate to Christianity, or Biblical Hermeneutics. – DJClayworth Aug 17 '12 at 03:19
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    @DJClayworth - I think this is a fair question. I believe what is being asked is: "Have people been tricked into believing Mary was a virgin based on a poor translation". I don't think the question is about personal beliefs. – going Aug 17 '12 at 03:30
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    I absolutely agree with DJClayworth, as on the question about [rape and marriage](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/10400/are-rape-victims-forced-to-marry-their-rapist-according-to-the-old-testament/10403) this is just a matter of interpreting the words in a book, without being able to ask the writer what he actually meant. There is NO definitive answer to this question, and a properly scientific answer cannot be given, so it is OT here. – nico Aug 17 '12 at 08:13
  • Also see [Are religious questions on-topic?](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/63/are-religious-questions-on-topic) on Meta. – nico Aug 17 '12 at 08:21
  • I remember Richard Dawkins making this claim. I wouldn't expect him to be making a unverifiable claim. – Andrew Grimm Aug 17 '12 at 13:18
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    I think this question is perfectly on topic. The question is not whether Mary was virgin or not, only if it is claimed in the Bible. It's a perfectly addressable question about literature. It's a fact of life that religious people make a host of extraordinary claims about their favourite texts. They are most definitely not exempt from skeptical investigation. – Sklivvz Aug 19 '12 at 21:03
  • To be clear: even "was Mary a virgin?" is OK here. The only possible skeptical answer is not very interesting as it's an extraordinary claim without any evidence -- so I'd rather avoid it. – Sklivvz Aug 19 '12 at 21:05

2 Answers2

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Firstly, I want to point out that the original passage being debated is actually in Matthew and not in Luke as your second link suggests.

Their argument is around the translation of the Hebrew word alma. They are taking issue with the fact that when the New Testament was written the Greek word for "virgin" was chosen.

It doesn't say elsewhere in Matthew that Mary was a virgin, but it does call Mary a virgin parthenos in Luke 1:27 (see Greek translation here) when not linking to any past text.

So, Isiah's prophecy aside, the Bible still says Mary is a virgin. So the people who are trying to make the argument are cherry picking.

going
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    I wish I could upvote again just for "cherry picking" ! – Ward - Trying Codidact Aug 18 '12 at 02:51
  • @Ward I did it for you! They absolutely are cherry picking. This is standard practice when dealing with a collection of articles from many different people over a long period of time. Especially when something contradicts itself as much as the bible does. – Garrett Fogerlie Aug 18 '12 at 17:05
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    I think Garret appears to misunderstand what Ward says. Ward says that the Bible clearly [tm] states that Mary was a virgin both directly and also by application of a prophesy, so that people who chose some other potentially ambiguous passage to claim that she was not a virgin are cherry picking. Whereas, draws deep breath, a Mentat analysis (Gurney Halleck style) of Garret's adumbration suggests that he thinks the cherry pickers are those who claim that she is a virgin, based on Biblical "analysis". No? [But, I may be wrong :-) ] – Russell McMahon Aug 20 '12 at 10:35
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    look at [this](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cherry) (may be NSFW, depending on your workplace) to understand the pun for cherry picking – SeanC Aug 20 '12 at 21:29
  • But Isaiah 7 does not talk on Mary.There is no word Mary in the whole book of Isaiah. – Benjamin Dec 31 '14 at 19:42
  • @RussellMcMahon, And what does "Mentat analysis Gurney Halleck style" mean? – Pacerier Jun 10 '15 at 05:44
  • @SeanC, NSFW is used to refer to images. – Pacerier Jun 10 '15 at 05:48
  • @Pacerier Ah. My bad. Yes, that should have been "Mentat analysis (Thufir Hawat style)." how careless of me. was interested to note that the original line above "Mentat analysis (Gurney Halleck style)" when keyed into GoogleSearch gives this thread as the 4th hit, and when enclosed in quotes is the only hit. – Russell McMahon Jun 10 '15 at 06:50
  • @Pacerier Yes, NSFW IS used to refer to images, but not only images. It is a warning that the material may be inappropriate in some environments and the material can certainly be other than images. FWIW while of course not authoritative, [**Wikipedia - Not safe for work**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_safe_for_work) says " ... used in e-mail, videos ... interactive discussion areas ... to mark URLs or hyperlinks ... which contain material such as nudity, pornography, or profanity, which the viewer may not want to be seen accessing in a public or formal setting such as in a workplace. ..." – Russell McMahon Jun 10 '15 at 06:55
  • @RussellMcMahon, Ic. But still, what would "Mentat analysis Thufir Hawat style" mean exactly? – Pacerier Jun 10 '15 at 08:58
  • @Pacerier Well, based on the leads above, as expected [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentat) is the first entry [here](https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=%22Mentat+analysis+Thufir+Hawat+style%22) and amongst other things says " ... Mentats possess exceptional cognitive abilities of memory and perception that are the foundations for supra-logical hypothesizing.... able to sift large volumes of data and devise concise analyses in a process that goes far beyond logical deduction ... cultivate "the naïve mind", the mind without preconception or ... – Russell McMahon Jun 10 '15 at 09:43
  • ... or prejudice ... extract essential patterns or logic from data and deliver useful conclusions with varying degrees of certainty... not a purely "left brain" type of intelligence with only a simplistic-autistic cognition, they are profoundly aware of nuance, subtlety and the kind of "sensitivity to initial conditions" which is studied in Chaos theory. Additionally, they take in information through visual as well as other media and their calculations are delivered not as numerical probabilities but as flowing paths, subject to new variations through the influence of new factors...." :-) – Russell McMahon Jun 10 '15 at 09:45
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Short answer: The translation of Virgin in the gospels is correct, the meaning in the original gospel text is indeed that Mary did not have sex before getting pregnant. There is a story of the word "Virgin" being mistranslated in the Bible (so what you heard might have been correct) but it happened at a earlier stage.

Background: As you may know, there are some prophecies in the Hebrew bible (what Christians know as the Old Testament) which foretells the birth of a "messiah", a king which will resurrect the kingdom to its former glory. [Source] The early Christians believed that the person Jesus was actually this messiah, so the gospels make a lot of effort to "prove" this by showing how various events and and actions by Jesus corresponds to the prophecies. For example, a prophecy states that the messiah would be a descendent of King David. [Source] Therefore two of the gospels, Luke and Matthew, produce genealogies which show how Jesus descend from King David through the male line. However, the two genealogies are completely different! This means that at least one of them must be fake. So we know that the gospel writers (or the early christian oral tradition which the writes are based on) would go to great length to "prove" how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies, including (to put it bluntly) making up evidence. [See Matthew 1:1 and Luke 3:23 for the conflicting genealogies]

So, the prophet Isiah have a passage when he states that the Messiah will be born by a young girl [See Isaiah 7:14]. Isaiah is of course written in Hebrew, the original language of the Hebrews/Jews. But at some point many Jews had migrated to Greek-speaking regions [Eg. Alexandrine Jews], and lost the Hebrew language. So the Hebrew bible was translated to Greek. This famous translation is called Septuagint. Now in this Septuagint the Isaiah passage is translated such the the meaning becomes virgin (girl who have not had sex) rather than just young, unmarried girl. [Source]

You can see where this is heading: Now the Greek-speaking Jews believe that the Messiah have to be born by a virgin, and the writers of the gospels (which were also Greek-speaking and referred to the Septuagint when quoting the prophets [Source]) will have to include a story that shows that Jesus was actually born by a virgin in order prove that Jesus was the Messiah. [Source] Now I'm not claiming that the gospels authors made up the story of the virgin birth, since it is impossible to know (only the parents of Jesus would have known what actually happened in any case) but it is interesting to know that Jesus and his original followers did not even know that the Messiah was supposed to be born by a virgin, since they were Aramaic speaking and referring to the original Hebrew scriptures, not the mistaken Greek translation. [Source]

References

Matthew 20-22, New International Version:

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[f] because he will save his people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”).

The section makes it clear that Matthew considers the virgin conception proof that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah. Now, Judaists may argue that Isiah is not really talking about the Messiah in this passage, which is a valid interpretation of Isiah, but not really relevant - the question is if Matthew considered it a valid prof, and it is quite clear that he does and expects his audience to.

Isaiah 7:14 - New Revised Standard version https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+7%3A14&version=NRSV

14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman[a] is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.[b] Footnotes:

Fotonote: Isaiah 7:14 Gk the virgin

The New Revised Standard version is considered the translation closest to the Hebrew scriptures and using the best available sources, including the Dead Sea Scrolls which where not available to previous translations from Hebrew.

JacquesB
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  • This is mostly true, except that Jews don't believe the passage in Isaiah has anything to do with the messiah, either. See the discussion here: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/43708/if-a-virgin-birth-actually-disqualifies-a-messianic-candidate-how-then-should-i . – Ernest Friedman-Hill Jul 21 '15 at 11:02
  • @ErnestFriedman-Hill: Are you talking about rabbinic Judaism, or Greek-speaking Hebrews at the time of Jesus? Because these are quite different. From Matthew it is clear that he considers the virgin birth a valid proof that Jesus fulfills Isiah, and he was most likely writing for a Jewish audience. Obviously the virgin-thing is totally irrelevant for rabbinic Judaism since they rely on the Hebrew texts, not the Greek translation. – JacquesB Jul 21 '15 at 11:53
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    Note that if the Messiah is born of a virgin, then he couldn't be part of the line of David (patrilinearly). These two "requirements" are contradictory; Jews of any age would have understood that. – Ernest Friedman-Hill Jul 21 '15 at 12:52
  • @ErnestFriedman-Hill: Apparently not, since otherwise Christianity would never have spread! Both Jewish and non-Jewish Christians have apparently accepted this paradox. I agree that it is a logical contradiction for a rational mind, but religion is not always logically consistent. – JacquesB Jul 21 '15 at 13:07
  • Please [provide some references](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/5) to support your claims. – Oddthinking Jul 21 '15 at 13:43
  • There are many unreferenced claims: "many Jews had migrated to Greek-speaking regions", "the Hebrew bible was translated to Greek", "This famous translation is called Septuaginta", " the Isiah passage is translated such the the meaning becomes virgin", etc. etc. Every significant claim you make should be referenced. – Oddthinking Jul 21 '15 at 14:39
  • @Oddthinking: Is sourcing acceptable now? – JacquesB Jul 21 '15 at 15:28
  • "Therefore two of the gospels, Luke and Matthew, produce genealogies which show how Jesus descend from King David through the male line. However, the two genealogies are completely different! This means that at least one of them must be fake." - This is incorrect. It is widely believed that the account in Matthew is of Mary's line. This is because in Jewish culture, a person's Jewishness was passed down through their mother's line (Matthew was written for Jews). Luke was written for Greeks, which is why it traces through Joseph's lineage. – Stephen Nov 01 '16 at 03:39
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    @Stephen: The have been several attempts by theologians to explain the discrepancies, but they are not based on any evidence and does not hold water when examined critically. For example the genealogies Luke and Mattehew are the same between David and Abraham, which disproves one could be maternal. – JacquesB Nov 01 '16 at 07:45