Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
As someone who is capable of speaking more than one language and having translated many documents professionally (mostly technical), I can state without equivocation that you have grossly over stated the actual process. IF one is indeed fluent in the languages they are dealing with. Then MOST of the translations are stinking obvious and automatic. One wonders how many translations you have accomplished.My comment was base on a quote by Aryeh Kaplan one of greats in the translation of Jewish texts. Translation is more than just simply mapping words from one language to another. The grammar must also be adjusted and tenses mapped to ones available in the language you are translating to. The context of a verse must also be taken into consideration. A strictly literal translation would be unreadable.
Dealing with dead languages (no known native speakers) becomes more of a crap shoot. No matter who the scholar is, if they are without an agenda, they will be quick to point out their OWN uncertainty in what and how they translate a document. Idioms can be guessed at but their true meanings are often lost for ever.
So, one has to wonder why the first century Christians did not question the disparity you question so diligently. It appears that they made a BIG DEAL of the virgin birth and they even translated it into Greek as such. Could it be, that their understanding of the language was a bit more recent than ours? I would suggest that their understanding of the Hebrew of the OT was far clearer than our present understanding by sheer virtue of time. Think about it... what kind of a sign is pregnancy if the woman is NOT a virgin? It would only be a sign of promiscuity and not a sign of God.
As for the English translations, calling someone a "young woman" who is unmarried is still calling her a virgin. My neighbor three doors down is a Rabbi, and I simply asked him about the difference between a woman and a young woman in scriptures. Without any hesitation, he said that "young woman" is another way of saying that she is a virgin.