Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Sorry about the double mailing

Dear Shoshanna,
> No it is not - where is viginity a moral issue in the Bible? 
> Nowhere.  There is a list of prohibited relationships, which are 
> serious transgressions, that is all.
>   

HH: It is a moral issue in the passage that we 
have been discussing,
Deut 22:13-21. This is the main passage on the 
subject. It is talking
about a moral issue, that of sexual purity. The 
idea is that men wanted
pure wives, not women that other men had possessed 
sexually. Virginity
is also a moral issue in other biblical laws: Deut 
22:23-24, Deut
22:28-29. There is an implied moral element in Lev 
21:14. The issue of
virginity probably lies behind the words in Song 
of Solomon 8:8-10. One
of the Shulamite's attractions for Solomon was the 
purity of her virginity.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard