Outdated Words?

The May 2011 issue of Reader's Digest recently reported: "The New American Bible is missing some words with outdated connotations, reports UPI, and now maybe young children will stop snickering when they hear them.  Booty has become spoils of war, and virgin has become young woman."  This move to deliberately change the meaning of a word was successfully tried way back when the RSV came out and eliminated "virgin" from Isaiah.  I suspect that its removal from the New Testament is now complete as well.  Young children may indeed 'snicker' out of embarrassment from certain words, but they of all people probably know the inherent difference in these words better than we realize.  This is simply dishonest and ultimately attacks the very doctrine of the virgin birth.  Of course, current culture little respects abstinence, so there is little wonder why the word has lost not only its lexical meaning, but its moral one as well.  Another sad day for translation work.....

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