modus.irrealis wrote:Although, in later Greek the word did come to explicitly mean virgin, but going by the LXX there, it didn't seem to have reached that point yet.
I would definitely agree with this. In the early part of the Koine, παρθένος had not yet shifted to refer specifically to a virgin. It was used just like נַעֲרָה* (
naʕará) and עַלְמָה (
ʕalmá) and בְּתוּלָה (
btulá) in Hebrew. The statement that a girl was a virgin had to be added in an explanatory phrase, such as "who has not known a man" or "who has not known the lying of a man (מִשְׁכַּב־זָכָר -
mishkav zahar)." None of these terms referred to
virgo intacta, though בְּתוּלָה (
btulá) came closest and eventually became the Hebrew term for "virgin." At least, that's how I find things.
Notice that the difference exists even in the Tanakh, however, where the word בְּתוּלִים (
btulím) means "(signs of) virginity" while נְעוּרוֹת (
neʕurót) and נְעוּרִים (
neʕurím) both mean "youth, childhood, boyhood," similar to יַלְדוּת (
yaldút). I don't think there's a noticeable difference (to an English speaker) among נַעֲרָה (
naʕará) and עַלְמָה (
ʕalmá) and יַלְדָה (
yaldá).
Regards,
Jason
* The form quoted from Genesis is a common defective form in the Torah, in which the final heh (a
mater lectionis most commonly representing the final
-á of a feminine noun, adjective or verb) is simply dropped. This leaves the form נַעֲרָ rather than נַעֲרָה, though they are both pronounced the same. In the above transcription, the symbol ʕ represents the sound of the letter ʕayin (ע), which is generally pronounced the same as alef (א) among Ashkenazim and Westerners, though among most Sefaradim it maintains its quality as a separate fricative sound, much the same as the Arabic ʕayin (ع).