The Old Testament has 50 occurrences of the Hebrew term bethulah (and variants), which translate as “a virgin. They all have the context of a female prior to being “known” by a man.
The New Testament has 15 occurrences of a Greek word Parthenos (and variants). The first 14 refer again to girls who had not been with a man yet.
Revelation 14:4 is the only exception. In John’s vision he sees 144,000 men “who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins”. I’m not sure who these 144,000 men are. Some believe they are an ethnic Jewish remnant of believers. Others believe they are the sum of Jehovah’s Witnesses before 1935. Others believe it’s just a big number that represents all believers. None of these common interpretations take into account the virginity aspect of these men. If the first 144,000 Jehovah Witnesses remained virgins I doubt that religion would have grown much. Also, if these 144,000 men in Revelation were virgins, it doesn’t seem they were saving themselves for marriage, but more likely a lifelong vow of chastity.
There are no Old Testament passages where male virginity is mentioned. Nobody seemed to care if men saved themselves for marriage.
Deuteronomy 22:13 – 21 shows how seriously they were about the virginity of females.
Suppose a man marries a woman, has sexual relations with her, and then rejects her, accusing her of impropriety and defaming her reputation by saying, “I married this woman but when I had sexual relations with her I discovered she was not a virgin!” Then the father and mother of the young woman must produce the evidence of virginity for the elders of the city at the gate. The young woman’s father must say to the elders, “I gave my daughter to this man and he has rejected her. Moreover, he has raised accusations of impropriety by saying, ‘I discovered your daughter was not a virgin,’ but this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity!” The cloth must then be spread out before the city’s elders. 18 The elders of that city must then seize the man and punish him. They will fine him one hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, for the man who made the accusation ruined the reputation of an Israelite virgin. She will then become his wife and he may never divorce her as long as he lives. But if the accusation is true and the young woman was not a virgin, the men of her city must bring the young woman to the door of her father’s house and stone her to death, for she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by behaving like a prostitute while living in her father’s house. In this way you will purge evil from among you.
1 Corinthians 7:36-38 is an example where the term virgin obviously refers to females and is not referring to the men:
If anyone thinks he is acting inappropriately toward his virgin, if she is past the bloom of youth and it seems necessary, he should do what he wishes; he does not sin. Let them marry. But the man who is firm in his commitment, and is under no necessity but has control over his will, and has decided in his own mind to keep his own virgin, does well. So then, the one who marries his own virgin does well, but the one who does not, does better.
Continue Reading:
Start from the top:
- Recently Discovered Chapter of Deuteronomy
- Sexuality of: Heros of The Faith
- Biblical Marriage
- Porneia (Sexual Immorality???)
- Take a Old Testament Sexuality Survey Here
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