Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

George,
> A study on the contextual usage of the word BETULAH shows this. Often, the 
> explicit
> statement is made, of a BETULAH that she "had known no man" (or another 
> similar
> expression). If BETULAH purely alluded to physical virginity (and not 
> social virginity),
> then the statement becomes redundant through tautology. The fact that 
> BETULAH has a
> socio-relational focus means that if the woman were a physical virgin, then 
> it would need
> to be pointed out in addition to simply naming her as a BETULAH.

Biblical Hebrew is loaded with this type of redundancy, so I don't 
think we can read as much into it as you would like.  A good 
example is 2 Sam 14:5: "I am a widow; my husband died."  With 
the redundancy of "my husband died" should we seek to find some 
more general meaning of "widow" that doesn't necessarily indicate 
a dead husband?  I don't think so. The redundancy is just a feature 
of the language, and I don't think the redundancy of "I have not 
known a man" is likely to tell us anything about the connotations of 
BETHULAH or `ALMAH.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"No study of probabilities inside a given frame can ever
tell us how probable it is that the frame itself can be
violated."  C. S. Lewis