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  • From: Tory Thorpe <torythrp AT yahoo.com>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] virginity
  • Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:39:48 -0400

Dear Shoshanna,

I'm in agreement with you that pre-marital sex was per se no capital offense, illicit sex could be. But if a woman claims -- after the wedding night -- that her hymen was broken through no fault of her own before the wedding night but subsequent to the bretrothal, the husband can dispute her testimony. Bed-linen from the wedding night wont help her case because of her admission and because the unstained linen is the husband's evidence against her: "I did not find BTWLYM in her" (Dt. xxii 14). But then, if no BTWLYM are produced, she is stoned to death (vv. 20-21), and in this case she is stoned precisely for having sex before the betrothal. Lying is not a capital offense. The big question, however, is what kind of BTWLYM could she then possibly be expected to submit in refutation of the husband's claim? What are BTWLYM?

Tory Thorpe


On Jul 22, 2007, at 5:03 PM, Shoshanna Walker wrote:

Because only a woman who has committed adultery, not sex without
marriage/betrothal, is subject to the death penalty. "Played the
whore" refers to that, not to modern day ideas of what promiscuity
consists of.

Shoshanna




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