Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Raymond de Hoop <rdehoop AT tref.nl>]

Harold R. Holmyard III <hholmyard AT ont.com> wrote on 30-01-2001 00:56:

> Dear Dave,
> 
> You say:
> 
>> That said, the oft-repeated argument about `almah meaning "young
>> woman [of marriageable age]" AS OPPOSED to "virgin" seems
>> equally artificial to me; wouldn't a "young woman of marriageable
>> age" be expected to be a virgin in that culture?
> 
> This is the position I took in the paper on I mentioned. But I added a
> Ugaritic reference suggesting virgin as a meaning for the Ugaritic cognate
> to Hebrew "almah."
> 
> Yours,
> Harold Holmyard
> 

Dear Harold,

I read your excursus in the paper you mentioned, but the Ugaritic cognate
>Glmt< does not help in this case, because it has the same problems as (almah
has in Hebrew. It denotes a young woman in this case, and in the case of KTU
1.24 it might refer indeed to a woman who is going to be married (the bride
price has still to be paid).

However, >Glmt< is also used for the goddesses (Anatu and probably (Athtartu
who were married to Ba(lu. >Glmt< is used as a parallel epithet to >btlt<
and since the mythic texts of Ugarit indicate that (Anatu is not a virgin,
the Ugaritic cognate has to be dismissed as evidence for (almah meaning
"virgin". 


Regards, Raymond