Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Re the Esther verse:
If you refer to 2:17, it refers to the women
who had been virgins when they went to the king.
It doesn't refer to their status now.
I'd say that 2:19 refers to a second group of virgins being gathered
for the king.
In general tho, you can be a concubine in the king's harem and still
be a virgin. He had hundreds of concubines, I doubt he slept with
all of them.
Liz



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles David Isbell [mailto:cisbell AT home.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 5:47 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: btwlh & `lmh
>
>
> Ian wrote: I can see no way to escape the fact that btwlh means
> "virgin". At
> the same time, there is nothing which suggests that `lmh has anything
> directly to do with the notion of "virgin".
>
> Ian, I concur that your analysis of `lmh is correct.  But with respect to
> betulah and parthenos, let me ask you and others about two additional
> passages.  In Esther two, "women who lived in the harem of King Ahasuerus,
> who had spent at least one night in the palace  with him (vs. 14), and who
> were officially labelled as his concubines' (vss. 8, 14), could also be
> called bethulot."  This is from my BAR article in 1977 (III:2, 18).  Does
> this not show that the term betulah was not BY ITSELF, without the
> qualifying phrase, adequate to mean  virgo intacta?  I guarantee
> you that if
> my sister had spent the night with a Persian monarch, I would be able to
> draw my own conclusions!
> Second, I also pointed out in 1977 that the LXX twice used parthenos
> [Genesis 34:1-4] to refer to the just-raped Dinah.  Again, does this not
> show that the term parthenos BY ITSELF, without the qualifying phrase, was
> also inadequate to express what our word "virgin" means?
> Remember if either
> betulah or parthenos is used even one time to refer to a female
> who has had
> sex in any fashion, then neither word can carry the modern meaning of
> "virgin".
> That is why the analyses of the context in Isaiah seven are far
> more telling
> than arguments about which particular lexical item happens to be found.
> Hebrew [and Greek also] did not use these two terms with the kind of
> specificity and exactness that we are attempting to ascribe to
> their modern
> English counterparts.
> Shalom,
> Charles
>
>
>
>
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