It wasn't a transcription error. The section of the Koran in question is very obscure in Arabic, and makes much better sense if read as East Syriac. It apparently is an East Syriac Christian text that got stuck in when the Koran was being 'dictated by the Archangel Gabriel'.
In East Syriac 'hur' is white raisin. It isn't anything in Arabic, and got interpreted by the Muslims (maybe even Mohammed himself) as the magically renewing 'chastely amorous' 'virgins'.
(Incidentally, my Metropolitan is an native speaker of Arabic, and says the Koran is lousy Arabic, not poetic, awkward, hardly the qualities you'd expect from an angelically dictated divinely authored work.)
Thanks so much for the illuminating comment. The above information is great to know. And, about the confusion between "raisins" and "virgins," all that I know is that it has been explained that way by several scholars. I wouldn't have any way of knowing the accuracy of the claim (that it originally meant "raisins"), but your explanation about the East Syriac vs. Arabic version makes excellent sense to me......but I just LOVE the comments of your metropolitan about how atrocious the Arabic really is!
Thanks so much for your contribution to the ongoing "conversation" concerning what I personally consider to be a very wicked cult.
Char