• soyslurper2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    the Ancient Greeks understood virgin as “unmarried” not “chaste”

    Not true. The Ancient Greeks translated the Hebrew Bible using a word that meant either young, unmarried or chaste depending on the context. That’s where this misinfo comes from.

    Priestesses of virgin goddesses still had to be chaste.

        • Estiar@sh.itjust.works
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          9 hours ago

          To add on to this, women were seen to not have sexual agency because sex was something that a man did to someone else. Since women didn’t have the man goods, they couldn’t do the sex to other things. They were also really afraid of women topping men because it ran contrary to what sex ought to be. But I bet some men liked that.

    • egrets@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      For those looking to find more, this is generally about the translation of the Hebrew ʿalmah (עלמה) to the context-sensitive Greek parthénos (παρθένος) in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament. The passage that gets most attention is Isaiah 7:14 as it seems to have been interpreted by the gospel writers as a prophecy of Jesus (or a suitable prophecy to model the gospels on):

      Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel