[B-Greek] Luke 2:36

Randall Buth ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Thu Jan 4 05:51:30 EST 2007


RB:
 >> Hanna's 'betulim' would be her marriage,
 >> that is, her leaving
 >> her betulim.

TT:
 > Respectfully, it cannot be her 'marriage' in the
 > abstract sense. For 'btwlym,' a masculine plural
 > cognate (lit. 'signs of virginity' visible on the $mlh
 > the night of consumation), never has this meaning in
 > BH, MH, or later rabbinic idiom.

Of course, 'marriage' is used by RB as 'the
marriage night', i.e., 'the first night', 'the night of the
betullim', and not the continued state of marriage.
Betulim, which would appear on the first night,
becomes a metonymy for the beginning of the
marriage, that is, the leaving of the virginity.
And yes, that information would be superfluous,
except that it implies that that marriage was her first
and presumably when young.
While the description strikes me as Hebraic, in line with
much of Luke's Greek and especially ch 1-2, in Greek
the 'virgin' idiom would reflect 'youth', male or female.
Young people were sometimes referred to as 'parthenos',
without any knowledge or statement of their sexlife.

The Jewish worldview, BTW, was highly suspicious of
Greek promiscuity and considered PORNEIA one of the
pandemic sins of the pagan world, along with idolatry
and murder. The Greeks had a thing for young boys.
Hanna is Jewish, a girl, and had betullim,
which keeps her outside of that pagan world.

As for APO THS PARQENIAS being as an idiom for
'marital fidelity', I've never seen such.
'a virginal marriage'? Almost sounds kinky and
would turn the idiom on its head.
You would need some good proof, like when English
speakers say 'bad' and mean 'good, cool'. Luke 2:36
makes sense as it is, so it is not your proof.

Randall Buth




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