Question on Genesis 34:3 LXX

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Nov 6 16:34:13 EST 2002


At 6:23 PM +0000 11/6/02, Mark Wilson wrote:
>George:
>
>You wrote:
>
>------
>>
>>My apologies for quoting a quotation, but I can't locate the original.
>>
>>I doubt very seriously the assertion that PARQENOS in the NT can ONLY mean
>>virgin.  Consider the case of Mt 25.1-13.  In this case the meaning could
>>be virgins, but it seems to me that it is used more analogously to our term
>>'bridesmaids'.  It is probably somewhat unusual if you find a wedding where
>>there isn't at least one married bridesmaid.  I doubt seriously that the
>>usage at the time was much different.
>-------
>
>In that case, since in English we use "virgin" to mean exactly that, do
>you believe there was ANY word in the Greek that denoted "virgin." Was
>there a word available then, as now, for "virgin."

I'm not quite sure what the point of this is. Is it that there's supposed
to be some Greek word that means "a woman without sexual experience" and
doesn't ever mean anything else? Is it as if we used the word in only one
way in English? Ever heard of "virgin snow"? My favorite is "extra virgin
olive oil," which of course is far superior to ordinary "virgin olive oil."
Perhaps we ought to forget the word "virgin" for PARQENOS and go back to
the good old Victorian word, "maiden." Everybody knows exactly what that
means, right?
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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