[B-Greek] Revelation 14:4--PARQENOI GAR EISIN

Leonard Jayawardena leonardj at live.com
Thu Sep 11 06:21:25 EDT 2008




Message: 3
Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:18:31 -0400
From: Carl Conrad 
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Revelation 14:4--PARQENOI GAR EISIN
To: Leonard Jayawardena 
Cc: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: 
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On Sep 6, 2008, at 11:15 PM, Leonard Jayawardena wrote:

> George F. Somsel: "As you can see from the usage in Joseph and
> Asenath, it was a practice in Christian literature to use PARQENOS
> to reference men."
>
> LJ: But that is precisely my point. There are NO instances of the
> use of PARQENOS in reference to adult males in Greek literature
> predating the GNT. So is it possible that the use of PARQENOS in
> Greek literature AFTER the GNT is a later development in the
> language, influenced at least partly by a literal interpretation of
> Rev. 14:4?

As George has already noted, our extant evidence is not adequate toprove what you're arguing. It may very well be correct that usage of PARQENOS with reference to adult males is not to be found in Greek texts predating the GNT. But an argument that literal interpretationof Rev 14:4 or other Christian literature is responsible for such
usage in later Hellenistic texts strikes me as an instance of the
fallacy, "post hoc ergo propter hoc." Asceticism as a lifestyle is
hardly unique to NT Christianity in later antiquity and is represented even in pre-Christian sectarian practice in Israel (the Nazirite vow, Essenes, etc.). On the Greek side there is the Socratic and Platonic exhortation to non-sexual affection that has been popularly termed "Platonic love." Such usage of the word PARQENOS in later Hellenistic Greek may very well reflect a cultural trend or cross-current rather than a uniquely Christian lexical development.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washingto


LJ: My position is that the word PARQENOS is used in Rev. 14:4 in such a way as to exclude "adult male virgin" as one of the meanings of that word at the time Revelation was written. (I have given my reasons in the long reply to Iver Larsen's post.) This is the main reason why I suggest that the use of this word in that sense is a later lexical development, at least partly influenced by a literal interpretation of Rev. 14:4. The use of this word in the extant literature lends some support to my position, though that evidence alone cannot be used as the basis for what I am arguing--on that I agree with you. //

With regard to your statement "Asceticism as a lifestyle is
hardly unique to NT Christianity in later antiquity and is represented even in pre-Christian sectarian practice in Israel (the Nazirite vow, Essenes, etc.)," does Hebrew have a word for a male virgin?//

In Sin(g)halese (or Sinhala), my mother tongue, the word for a female virgin is KANYAWAK (I hope I have transliterated it correctly. The vowels represented by "A" are all different with the second being a long "a" /a:/). THERE IS NO WORD FOR A MALE VIRGIN IN SINHALA. Here's part of the definition of "virgin" in the most respected English-Sinhala dictionary in Sri Lanka in translation (and transliteration): "One who has not had sexual intercourse; esp. KANYAWAK..." (Malalasekera English Sinhala Dictionary, 4th edition). You will see that this confirms the fact that there is no word for a male virgin in Sinhala; otherwise the dictionary would have used it in the definition: i.e.,  "Word X and KANYAWAK...." According to tradition, Buddhist monasticism in Sri Lanka, with its strict observance of celibacy, goes  back to the third century AD, when Buddhism was first brought to Sri Lanka from India. Therefore Sinhalese has more right than most languages to have a word for a male virgin, yet it does not have one. So is it impossible that the ancient Greeks had no word for a male virgin?

(The preceding paragraph will also serve as an answer to Oun Kwon's comment "I am not sure is there a specific Greek word forthe male counter part anyway.")

Leonard Jayawardena
Sri Lanka

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