lost in language

A review of a scholarly book on (mis)translation makes the following interesting observation:

The Virgin Birth and Virgin Mary are, pardon the pun, pregnant with social symbolic significance in most, if not all, parts of the world. Whether you believe in them or not, they are solid social constructs, rehearsed endlessly in art, humour, everyday life, and language. And yet their birth is due to a relatively simple mistake in translation. The Old Testament talks about almah 'young woman,' not bethulah 'virgin.' However, the scholars in the 3rd century BC translated the Hebrew almah as parthenos in Greek. Thus the 'young woman' in Hebrew metamorphosed into a 'virgin' in Greek—and she has remained a virgin ever since in translations across the world. The notion of 'virgin birth' was born, thanks to a mistranslation.

For an accessible story of how this happened, I recommend Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. Historians have noted that many pre-Christian cultures had virgin birth mythologies, including the Romans, who believed that Alcema, a mortal woman, was impregnated by the god Zeus and gave birth to Hercules. However, the dispute over the historicity (much less the likelihood) of virgin birth has never really stopped people from believing in it. Nor did it stop a British insurer from providing three Scottish women with a £1 million insurance policy covering the costs of bringing up the Christ if one of them were to have a virgin birth. (The policy was cancelled following pressure from the Catholic Church.)