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I realize this is about six months old, but there is a reason why most Christian translations of Isaiah use "virgin" instead of "young woman."
Matthew quotes the Septuagint, which as mentioned, uses parthenos, usually translated as virgin. Since literalist Christians believe that Matthew was dictated by G-d, that makes that particular passage from the Septuagint inerrant as it stands in the Greek. Hence the Septuagint translation is the correct one, and should be used as a model for the English. This is not my personal take on it--just an explanation.
Matthew was probably not written by anyone named Matthew, and he may not have even been able to read Hebrew or Aramaic, but there's an old tradition that Matthew wrote this gospel for the Jews. Certainly he's more interested in the Jews than the other evangelists (and more anti-Semitic for that matter).
Most Christian translations use a variety of ancient texts, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Coptic, and probably some I've forgotten, but most are based on the idea that there was one "true" text that might possibly be recovered by picking and choosing from the existing texts. The particular Hebrew text, the ones that Jews use and invented all the letter checks and counts for, is not thought to be inerrant, as it might have had scribal errors and such inserted before the Jewish scholars got to it. But since all the texts of Matthew make it clear that he was quoting the Septuagint, it's assumed that the Septuagint is inerrant in that passage.
Matthew quotes the Septuagint, which as mentioned, uses parthenos, usually translated as virgin. Since literalist Christians believe that Matthew was dictated by G-d, that makes that particular passage from the Septuagint inerrant as it stands in the Greek. Hence the Septuagint translation is the correct one, and should be used as a model for the English. This is not my personal take on it--just an explanation.
Matthew was probably not written by anyone named Matthew, and he may not have even been able to read Hebrew or Aramaic, but there's an old tradition that Matthew wrote this gospel for the Jews. Certainly he's more interested in the Jews than the other evangelists (and more anti-Semitic for that matter).
Most Christian translations use a variety of ancient texts, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Coptic, and probably some I've forgotten, but most are based on the idea that there was one "true" text that might possibly be recovered by picking and choosing from the existing texts. The particular Hebrew text, the ones that Jews use and invented all the letter checks and counts for, is not thought to be inerrant, as it might have had scribal errors and such inserted before the Jewish scholars got to it. But since all the texts of Matthew make it clear that he was quoting the Septuagint, it's assumed that the Septuagint is inerrant in that passage.