In the original Hebrew, the 10th Commandment prohibits taking, not coveting. The biblical Jubilee year is named for an animal's horn and has nothing to do with jubilation. The pregnant woman in Isaiah 7:14 is never called a virgin. Psalm 23 opens with an image of God's might and power, not shepherding. And the romantic Song of Solomon offers a surprisingly modern message.
But most people who read the Bible don't know these things, because extensive translation gaffs conceal the Bible's original meaning.
The mistakes stem from five flawed translation techniques: etymology, internal structure, cognates, old mistranslations, and misunderstood metaphor. (Read more: "Five Ways Your Bible Translation Distorts the Original Meaning of the Text.")
The tenth Commandment, commonly but wrongly translated as "thou shalt not covet," illustrates how internal structure or etymology can be misleading. Like the English "host" and "hostile" that share a root but don't mean the same thing, the words for "desirable" and "take" in Hebrew come from the same root. It's the second word, "take," that appears in the Ten Commandments. But translators, not recognizing that related words can mean different things in this way, misunderstood the Hebrew and wrongly translated the text as "thou shalt not covet" for what should have been "thou shalt not take." (Learn more: "Thou shalt not covet?")
The translation "Jubilee year" results from a mistaken application of cognates (similar words in different languages). In the original Hebrew, the year was called the "year of the horn," or, in Hebrew, "the year of the yovel." The Latin for yovel is iobileus, which just happens to sound like the Latin word iubileus, connected to the verb iubilare, "to celebrate." The English "Jubilee year" comes from the Latin. (A similar Latin coincidence gave rise to the notion that the fruit in the Garden of Eden was an apple.)
Starting about 2,300 years ago, the Hebrew Bible was translated into a Greek version now known as the Septuagint. One shortcoming of that translation is its inattention to near synonyms. For instance, the Hebrew words for "love," "mercy" and "compassion" are frequently mixed up, because they mean nearly the same thing. Likewise, because most young women in antiquity were virgins and most virgins were young women, the Septuagint wasn't careful to distinguish the words for "virgin" and "young woman" in translation.
This is how the Hebrew in Isaiah 7:14 -- which describes a young woman giving birth to a boy who will be named Emmanuel -- ended up in Greek as a virgin giving birth. Though these facts about Greek and Hebrew are generally undisputed among scholars, the translation error remains, both because people are usually unwilling to give up familiar translations, and also perhaps because the Gospel of Matthew describes the virgin birth of Jesus by quoting the mistaken Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14.
Metaphors are particularly difficult to translate, because words have different metaphoric meanings in different cultures. Shepherds in the Bible were symbols of might, ferocity and royalty, whereas now they generally represent peaceful guidance and oversight. So the image of the Lord as shepherd in Psalm 23 originally meant that the Lord was mighty, fierce and royal. The impact was roughly the same as "the Lord is a man of war." But in most English-speaking cultures, "the Lord is my shepherd" conveys a wholly different, and therefore inaccurate, image.
Similarly, kinship terms like "father," "brother," "sister," etc. were used in the Bible specifically to indicate power structure. This is why the romantic Song of Solomon -- the Bible's only full length treatise on relationships -- says "my sister, my bride" or "my sister, my spouse." On its face, that English translation is not only unromantic but in fact felonious. The original point, however, was that the woman in this relationship should be the man's equal.
In these and many other instances, improved translation techniques bring us closer to the original intent of the Bible. And like a newly restored work of art, the Bible's original beauty shines the brighter for it.
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7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
Obviously, you do not believe this. He spoke the world into existence with his word. He created man from the dust of the ground. He parted the Red Sea so Israel could walk across on dry ground. He sent his son to die on the cross. Was resurrected. These are so few of the miracles. Yet, according to you, he can't preserve his word & it be perfect like he is. It's nice of you for trying to help God out. I think, as Felix said to Paul, much learning doth make thee mad.
I am no Bible expert. I read & study it a lot. But I know I am at best a novice. All these translations & multiple manuscripts that are around are filled with differences. If two or more are different. They can not all be right. It is confusing.
1Co 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
Satan questioned God's word very early. Gen. - 3:1,,, Yea, hath God said,,,,
Paul talked of people doing it in his day.
2Co 2:17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.
I believe he preserved his word perfectly & without error by faith. Which is the only reason I know I'm going to Heaven.
1Jo 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
If there are 5 mistakes, because a man says so. How do I know if there are 500 mistakes? How do I know that 1John 5:13 is not a mistake? Or John 3:16? I choose
You raise an interesting point about Genesis 24:16 ("[she was] a BETULAH, and no man had known her"). I can see why you'd think that this means that BETULAH doesn't mean "virgin."
But, in fact, it's common in Hebrew to modify a word with what we would now call redundant information. For example, in Genesis 11:30 we read that Sarah was "barren - she had no child." (Similarly, the beautiful poetry of Isaiah reads, in 54:1: "Rejoice, O barren one, who has not given birth.") Likewise, 2 Samuel 14:5 reads, "...I am a widow; my husband is dead."
So in the broader context of how biblical Hebrew works, Genesis 24:16 actually suggests that BETULAH *does* mean "virgin," though, either way, ALMA (the word in Isaiah 7:14) does not.
Grammatically
You are correct. Like parallelism, some statements are synonymous (or, redundant). But then again, some are synthetic (adding information in order to qualify some aspect of the statement). Gen 24.11 is an example of this: “… the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water.” Unless you know of some grammatical rule (like Greek’s Granville Sharp rule) that supports your argument, all we have to go on is context and history to translate correctly.
Historically
I am willing to bet the guy who walked and lived with Jesus for three years knows more than us about how Isaiah 7.14 and the Messiah are linked.
Contextually
The Messianic motif is wholly in concert with Isaiah’s treatment of the Messiah, including His conception (chapter 7), His birth (chapter 9), and His subsequent reign (chapter 11).
Theologically
Per 2 Tim 3.16 and 2 Pet 1.21, Matthew is speaking based on “inspiration” and “moving” by God’s Spirit. Since no substantial variant readings are reported for this verse, I am racking my brain to understand why God would want to deceive us by making us believe Isaiah was referring to the Messiah in 7.14.
" Read some article by some guy who wants to rewrite the 10 Commandments to say that the 10th Commandment does not mean “covet” but “take”. He’s got a PhD, I don’t. But, ISTM that he cherry picks his verses to use the ones that maybe support his view, but he ignores the ones that don’t support his view—plus the fact that there was already a commandment about taking—Thou shalt not steal—that I really don’t buy his interpretation. Although I would love to hear that my coveting Paz Vega or Grace Park was totally ok."
In actuality, they are almost all largely based on the KJV, sometimes explicitly, sometimes by default, and sometimes just because the translators grew up with a KJV-based translation, so that's what they know best.
What an absurd notion! Are they still neighbors after this "taking"?
In addition to the absurdity, this would be a redundancy of the commandment "Thou shalt not steal."
In context, "covet" makes much more sense.
The event being used by Isaiah is that a particular pregnant woman will give birth and name her child. This event will prove to the king that the kingdoms currently menacing the kingdom of Judah will be destroyed. This happened two years later. Thus, the prophesy had to come true sooner than that.
Attempting to apply a prophesy given during the first temple to an event that occurred at the end of the second temple (almost a thousand years later) is as ridiculous as telling George Washington in Valley Forge that the British would be defeated and as proof predicting that Abraham Lincoln would free the slaves.
This is one of the examples of deliberate mistranslations in order to attempt to make a point. It is not a matter of making a mistake but of a deliberate lie.
I have more about this style in the New Testament here: http://goddidntsaythat.com/2010/10/19/what-happens-to-prophecies-in-the-new-testament/ ("What Happens to Prophecies in the New Testament?").
One might think of it as addressing a child. One does not describe a situation to a three year old in the same terms as a 13 year old and not then as one would a 23 year old, or a 43 year old.
One must consider the immediate audience and their worldview and what amount of information they can process.
At least, that's a logical reasoning for how the bible could indeed by the word of God. it's also admittedly possible that men made up stories which fit the worldview they knew, and that changed over the centuries. Either account is logical, depending on whether one starts with a pre-existing belief in God or not.
I refer you to the four accounts of the Triumphal Entry, or the four resurrection accounts (well, three, really - the gospel of Mark doesn't have one.) You may wish to examine the content for yourself rather than buy what is fed to you from the pulpit.