German uses the word Jungfrau (literally young woman), there’s no separate word explicitely defining a state of not having had sex.
I’m guessing Almah is similar.
But I heard a different story about the “virgin birth” - problem is I have no idea if it’s true or not. Anyhow:
There was some sort of ritual where young women were invited to spend a night at the temple, with priests. Due to the religious nature of this, they were still considered to be virgins (“marriable” I guess?) afterwards. Quite the opposite, it was seen as an honour. Even if they got pregnant.
So there’s your “Virgin” Mary who was “visited by an angel” to conceive.
German uses the word Jungfrau (literally young woman), there’s no separate word explicitely defining a state of not having had sex.
I’m guessing Almah is similar.
But I heard a different story about the “virgin birth” - problem is I have no idea if it’s true or not. Anyhow:
There was some sort of ritual where young women were invited to spend a night at the temple, with priests. Due to the religious nature of this, they were still considered to be virgins (“marriable” I guess?) afterwards. Quite the opposite, it was seen as an honour. Even if they got pregnant.
So there’s your “Virgin” Mary who was “visited by an angel” to conceive.
From what I found, Mary supposedly lived at the temple from childhood as a consecrated virgin.
So apparently she was groomed by the priests?
This is your source.