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== Reception and controversy ==<!-- This section is linked from [[Good News Translation]] --> === Isaiah 7:14 dispute and impact === {{Main|Isaiah 7:14}} The RSV New Testament was well received, but reactions to the Old Testament were varied and not without controversy.<ref>[[Daniel B. Wallace|Wallace, Daniel B.]], "The History of the English Bible" (lecture series with transcripts). http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1825</ref> Critics claimed that the RSV translators had translated the Old Testament from a non-Christian perspective. Some critics specifically referred to a Jewish viewpoint, pointing to agreements with the 1917 [[Jewish Publication Society of America Version]] [[Tanakh]] and the presence on the editorial board of a Jewish scholar, [[Harry Orlinsky]]. Such critics further claimed that other views, including those regarding the New Testament, were not considered. The focus of the controversy was the RSV's translation of the Hebrew word {{lang|he|עַלְמָה}} ([[almah|''ʿalmāh'']]) in [[Isaiah 7:14]] as "young woman." ''Almah'' in Hebrew translates as a young woman of childbearing age who had not had children, and so may or may not be a virgin.<ref>{{cite book |last=Saldarini |first=Anthony J. J. |date=2001 |title=Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans |page=1007 |isbn=0-8028-4358-1}}</ref> The Greek language [[Septuagint]] written one hundred to three hundred years before Jesus rendered almah as ''parthenos'' (παρθένος), which translates as "virgin", and this is the understanding carried over by Christians. Of the seven appearances of ''ʿalmāh'', the [[Septuagint]] translates only two of them as ''parthenos'', "virgin" (including Isaiah 7:14). By contrast, the word {{lang|he|בְּתוּלָה}} (''bəṯūlāh'') appears some 50 times, and the Septuagint and English translations agree in understanding the word to mean "virgin" in almost every case. The controversy stemming from this rendering helped reignite the [[King-James-Only Movement]] within the Independent Baptist and Pentecostal churches. Furthermore, many Christians have adopted what has come to be known as the "Isaiah 7:14 litmus test", which entails checking that verse to determine whether or not a new translation can be trusted.<ref name="Rhodes">{{cite book|author=Rhodes, Ron|title=The Complete Guide to Bible Translations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NfI6sgyzq4YC&q=litmus+test&pg=PA81|year=2009|publisher=Harvest House Publishers|isbn=978-0736931366|pages=80–82}}</ref> === Protest === Some opponents of the RSV took their antagonism beyond condemnation. Luther Hux, a pastor in [[Rocky Mount, North Carolina]], announced his intention to [[Book burning|burn]] a copy of the RSV during a sermon on November 30, 1952. This was reported in the press and attracted shocked reactions, as well as a warning from the local fire chief. On the day in question, he delivered a two-hour sermon entitled "The National Council Bible, the Master Stroke of Satan—One of the Devil's Greatest Hoaxes". After ending the sermon, he led the congregation out of the church, gave each worshipper a small American flag and proceeded to set light to the pages containing Isaiah 7:14. Hux informed the gathered press that he did not burn the Bible, but simply the "fraud" that the Isaiah pages represented. Hux later wrote a [[Tract (literature)|tract]] against the RSV entitled ''Modernism's Unholy Bible''.<ref>{{cite book|author=Peter Johannes Thuesen|author-link=Peter Johannes Thuesen|title=In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles Over Translating the Bible|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Parz1Sxd8BsC&pg=PA97|date=1 May 2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-515228-9|pages=96–98}}</ref> The RSV translators linked these events to the life of [[William Tyndale]], an inspiration to them, explaining in their preface: "He met bitter opposition. He was accused of willfully perverting the meaning of the Scriptures, and his New Testaments were ordered to be burned as 'untrue translations.'" But where Tyndale was strangled and then burned at the stake for his work, [[Bruce Metzger]], referring to the pastor who burned the RSV and sent the ashes to [[Luther Weigle]], commented in his book ''The Bible In Translation'': "today it is happily only a copy of the translation that meets such a fate" instead of Bible translators.<ref name="Metzger2001">{{cite book|author=Bruce M. Metzger|title=The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions|url=https://archive.org/details/bibleintranslati0000metz|url-access=registration|date=1 October 2001|publisher=Baker Academic|isbn=978-0-8010-2282-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bibleintranslati0000metz/page/120 120]–}}</ref>
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