The RSV and ESV and the Word "Virgin"

A while ago I was listening online to a radio program (Southwest Radio) broadcast by Noah Hutchings where he was interviewing Theodore Letis, who is a Majority Text advocate and scholar.

The program was one critiquing the ESV [English Standard Version], where they started off by summing up the history of its predecessor, the RSV. In these types of Conservative circles, the RSV [Revised Standard Version] is usually held up as a paragon of Liberal evil. The initial criticism usually begins with the RSV's handling of the hebrew word ALMAH at Isaiah 7:14. Back in the 1950's, Rocky Mount, North Carolina (see above image) they held public a burning of the RSV with this particular Scripture as the igniting point.

As expected, much ado was made of the rendering in the RSV of this word, and the scholar Letis accused the RSV of translating almah as "young maiden", and not the traditional KJV rendering of "virgin."

There are several things wrong here. First, "maiden" also means "virgin" so there really should be no argument here:

"maiden adj 1 : unmarried; also : virgin 2 : of, relating to, or befitting a
maiden 3 : first <~ voyage>"
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (C) 1994 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated

Secondly, the RSV does not render almah as "young maiden" at Isaiah 7:14, but rather "young woman."

"Maiden", which is actually a better rendering is skirts both lines comfortably, that of a young woman, and a virgin at the same time. The New World Translation uses this word here, as does the New Jerusalem Bible, which I can't see these guys picking up without a clove of garlic and a silver bullet in hand.

Lastly, since this program was supposed to critique the English Standard Version, all of this should really be a non-issue as the ESV actually uses the word "virgin" at Isaiah 7:14, with no other alternative mentioned in the footnote, just like Letis and Hutchings beloved KJV Bible the programmers only accept. The only point of bringing up the RSV was to mark the ESV guilty by association since it is a revision.

This does not speak well for the scholarships that are being handed out. Evangelicals, King James Only extremists and Mormons all produce their own scholars, and considering the work that these people produce, they don't seem to be setting the bar too high.

Eugene Nida was right:

"when dealing with religious writings people are generally far less concerned with accuracy than with traditional expression."