[B-Greek] Luke 2:36

Tory Thorpe torythrp at yahoo.com
Thu Jan 4 08:50:05 EST 2007


--- Randall Buth <ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il> wrote:

> 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.

TT: This metonymy is a little misleading. The 'leaving
of the virginity' may be clear enough in English, but
'btwlym,' used in the sense of a state or condition
which may be contrasted with marital life, does not
exist in BH or MH. 

> And yes, that information would be superfluous,
> except that it implies that that marriage was her
> first and presumably when young.

TT: Not in the Jewish world. After kiddushin, a couple
is legally married in many respects. They may not
cohabit, but she is liable to the death penalty for
adultery before the marriage takes full effect with
the nesuin. A betrothal must be disolved the same way
a marriage would.

> 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.

TT: If Hebraic, the description in Greek would not
merely reflect youth. A btwlh is a female who has not
had her first period, even if she were married
(Mishnah Nidd. 1:4). Chastity is not implicit.

> Young people were sometimes referred to as
> 'parthenos', without any knowledge or statement of
their sexlife.

TT: And a young woman everyone knew was no longer
virgo intacta could still be referred to as
'parthenos' (LXX, Gen. 34:1-4).
 
> 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. 

TT; That is still very much a Jewish worldview.

> 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.

TT: The former is possibly the sense in Rev. 14:4,
since marital life, or even sex per se, does not cause
'defilement' in a Jewish context. As for the latter,
you are, once again, reading virgo intacta into Lk
2:36. It might help to explain that a pregnant btwlh
is not a contradiction or biological impossibility,
not in the Jewish worldview (Chag. 14b-15a) where
btwlh simply refers to a minor, i.e. a girl below
puberty. Thus Hanna's virginity (btwlyh) can refer to
delayed puberty, that is, she experienced seven years
of marital life before becoming a menstruant, which
would be noteworthy in Judaism.

> 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

TT: Of course, I would never offer Lk 2:36 as proof of
anything. I'm only looking at it from a Jewish
perspective. I cannot help it, being a Jew. But
perhaps that is not what the Luke author expects.

Tory Thorpe



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