Translation Errors
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Wants-Dead-Sean-Hastings/dp/0979601118">God Wants You Dead</a> is an entertaining and subversive little book that reminded me of a well-known controversy in the translation of the Judeo-Christian Bible.  Most educated people probably know that in Isaiah 7:14 it is prophesied that the Messiah will be born of an &#8216;almah&#8217; of the House of David &#8212; and thereby hangs an ambiguity over which much ink and blood have been spilled.</p>
</p>
<p>Reading this, I was reminded of something most people don&#8217;t know &#8212; that a similar translation problem lurks even nearer the root of Christian theology&#8230;</p>
<p><span id="more-787"></span></p>
<p>The word &#8216;almah&#8217; in Hebrew is ambiguous in much the same way &#8216;maiden&#8217; is in English; it can mean &#8220;young woman&#8221; or it can mean &#8220;virgin&#8221;.  Christian translations render it as &#8216;virgin&#8217;, interpreting it as a prophecy of the birth of Yeshua bar-Yosif, later called Jesus the Christ.  This prophecy, is, in effect, conjured up out of what might be a translation error.</p>
<p>Here are two more facts known to many educated people:</p>
<p>1. The Christians did not begin to arrive at a settlement of the question of the divinity of Jesus until surprisingly late &#8211; the council of Nicaea in AD 325, and important controversies remained live until the Third Council of Constantinople in 680.</p>
<p>2. The original Aramaic-speaking Christians of Palestine having been effectively wiped out in the aftermath of the Bar Kokba revolt in AD 70, Christianity was re-founded by Paul of Tarsus among speakers of Koine Greek.  The entire New Testament is written in Koine Greek.</p>
<p>Now here are two facts generally known only among a handful of specialist scholars.  I picked them up through omnivorous reading and did not fully realize their significance for a long time.</p>
<p>3. In other Aramaic sources roughly contemporary with the New Testament, the phrase &#8220;Son of God&#8221; occurs as an idiom for &#8220;guru&#8221; or &#8220;holy man&#8221;. Thus, if Jesus refers to himself as &#8220;the son of God&#8221;, the Aramaic sense is arguably &#8220;the boss holy man&#8221;.</p>
<p>4. The Koine Greek of the period, on the other hand, did not have this idiom.</p>
<p>Now, imagine a Koine speaker  reading the lost Aramaic source documents of which the Gospels are redactions, with only an indifferent command of the latter language  He does not know that &#8220;Son of God&#8221; is an idiom&#8230;</p>
<p>Yes, that&#8217;s right.  I&#8217;m suggesting that Jesus got deified by a translation error!</p>
<p>(Correction: The Bar Kokba revolt was AD 132; I was confusing it with the revolt of AD 70 in which the Temple at Jerusalem was destroyed.) </p>
