Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Steve Miller" <smille10 AT sbcglobal.net>]

> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 
> > 2005 12:20 AM
>
> > > Bethulah means "virgin".
> >
> > Could it be more general to mean a morally virtuous woman: either a 
> > virgin
> > or a woman faithful in marriage to one husband from her virginity?
>
> Sorry, Steve, I just don't see it.

thanks Yigal

> By the way, I don't think that the Torah
> considers an unmarried woman who is not a virgin to be "unvirtuous". If 
> she
> married passing herself off as a virgin, that makes her a liar.

In the very verses we were discussing, Deut 20:13-21:
1) the man is punished for bringing an evil name upon a virgin in Israel. 
The evil name is not that she was a liar, but that she was not a virgin when 
he married her.
2) the woman is stoned, not for lying, but "because she hath wrought folly 
in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil 
away from among you."
-Steve Miller