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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] bethulah equals virgin?

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  • From: "Steve Miller" <smille10 AT sbcglobal.net>
  • To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] bethulah equals virgin?
  • Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:18:25 -0400

----- 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




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