BETHULAH - virgin

Liz Fried lizfried at umich.edu
Sun Jan 28 15:58:18 EST 2001


Dear George,
You say "actually" as if you have data for this.
What's your data?
Liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Athas [mailto:gathas at globalfreeway.com.au]
> Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2001 3:50 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: BETHULAH - virgin
> 
> 
> | [...]
> | BeTHULAH is almost only used for virgin and no other word, this word
> | occurs many times in the Bible and in Isaiah (see 62:5). (As to Dan's
> | examples: Joel 1:8 is a difficult verse and the idiom could refer to a
> | woman who had not had sex for a long time. Esther 2:17 refers 
> to those who
> | were virgins (in the first round of the Miss Persia contest) see Esther
> | 2:3. How does Job 31:1 prove that BeTHULAH cannot mean virgin?)
> | [...]
> 
> 
> Actually, the word BeTHULAH does not denote "virgin" in the 
> technical sense as someone who
> has not had sex. Rather, the word indicates a woman who is 
> marriageable, regardless of her
> previous sexual activity. It is akin to our modern expression 
> "single woman" -- that is, a
> woman who is not currently married. Many women who had been 
> married but whose husbands had
> died without leaving children were considered "virgins" -- that 
> is, they were eligible for
> marriage (again).
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> GEORGE ATHAS
> (Sydney, Australia)
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