In a way, all languages are mutually untranslatable. But this doesn't prevent people making do. The Bible, however, as a Divine book, is a special case. It's not just a newspaper article or a cookbook. Furthermore, all a translation can give you is the surface meaning. There is far, far, far more to the Bible than the surface meaning.
First of all there are the four senses: peshat (plain), derash (homiletical), remez (allusions in the letters), and sod (secret). Every one of these is important. And more than this, since the Torah contains at some level the blueprint of the entire created universe, including the details of the life of every human being, animal, and "all that grows or is inert" (Vilna Ga'on).
Then you have the sizes, shapes, crowns, and numerical values in the letters. Then you have the spaces among the letters. You can't get all this by machine-printing a translation. This is a book which G-d wrote and dictated letter-for-letter, and every letter is there for a reason. A change in a single letter invalidates and entire scroll.
I don’t believe that ANY translations are “inspired” - only the original text is inspired (which we don’t have - so we have to rely on the best manuscripts available). I do believe that some translations are more accurate than others. I have to rely on the critical reviews of the scholarship of the translation committees that produced a given translation. I understand that there are some translations that try to be more “word for word”, and others go for more flowing readability.
A fat lot of good it does to have the only inspired transcriptions lost to history for over 3000 years! In fact, the Oral Torah contains all the laws for correctly transcribing and copying a Torah Scroll so that all its letters are correct in identity, size, shape, etc. This, and not some medieval pointed text, is our authentic link with the original scrolls Moses wrote at G-d's dictation. And as I have pointed out, none of these laws are in the Written Torah. So if there's no Oral Torah, the only Written Torahs in history would be the ones Moses wrote personally and which decayed millennia ago.
Now the point you are trying to make in objecting to the idea that the Torah/Na"KH contains all this information is your Protestant insistence that the Bible has only one purpose: to get folks "saved." This is why you must insist on the perspicacity of Scripture and its easy apprehension by a sixteenth century German milkmaid. Since this is what your religion dictates, of course you are going to believe this and insist that any deeper message is unnecessary or even "unfair." But the fact is that the Bible was not written to instruct in chrstian "salvation" at all. Chrstianity has appropriated the Hebrew Bible and insisted on eisegeting chrstianity into it. As a matter of fact, the translation of the Torah into languages other than Hebrew is one of the things mourned on the fast day of `Aseret Be'Tevet.
Bottom line: None of this information G-d put in the Hebrew Bible communicates any secret information about how to "get saved," so you have nothing to worry about there. That being the case, why are we even arguing? Why is it so important that someone who rejects the idea that the TaNa"KH is a chrstian book at all thinks it contains information that you don't? It simply doesn't make any sense.
Re: “Now the point you are trying to make in objecting to the idea that the Torah/Na”KH contains all this information is your Protestant insistence that the Bible has only one purpose: to get folks “saved.” This is why you must insist on the perspicacity of Scripture and its easy apprehension by a sixteenth century German milkmaid.”
I do believe that if G_d has given us His Word, then I would also assume that He does want it to be understood. I don’t see any reason to assume that that understanding should be limited to only a few highly educated people. Isn’t it a teaching in the Torah that G_d is not just the G_d of Israel, but of the whole world?
The people of Israel are His chosen people, but He also created all human beings and the judgements described against the pagan peoples were because of their refusal to acknowledge Him. My point being, that I don’t believe that it is just my Christian worldview that would have me believe that G_d wants His Word to be understood by anyone who revered Him and wanted to know Him.
Re: “But the fact is that the Bible was not written to instruct in chrstian “salvation” at all. Chrstianity has appropriated the Hebrew Bible and insisted on eisegeting chrstianity into it. As a matter of fact, the translation of the Torah into languages other than Hebrew is one of the things mourned on the fast day of `Aseret Be’Tevet.”
Now we arrive at the crossroads - who is Jesus of Nazareth? If Jesus was who the Gospel accounts claim - not only Messiah, but also G_d in human form, who took on the sin of all mankind and died as the Lamb of G_d as a propitiation for that sin - both Jew and Gentile alike, then yes, absolutely the Torah, the Law and the Prophets, the Psalms do indeed, as you say, have a salvation message.
However, if Jesus is not who the Gospels claim, then you are right, Christians have “appropriated the Hebrew Bible and insisted on eisegeting chrstianity into it.” But, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it.