The old testament primarily only defines physical virginity, which is defined by a woman having an intact hymen, so men are not ever labeled virgins in scripture, nor in most ancient cultures. However, as I will explain further that there are some spiritual principles revealed in ritual purity laws of the old testament that feed into the definition of sexual immorality in the new testament. Eunuchs are recognized as not interested in marriage, but that doesn’t mean they are all virgins, some may have had sex before getting castrated. Only procreative sex acts deal with virginity, so same-sex intercourse and beastiality didn’t count but those were violations of the moral laws and punishable by death. Some may use this to argue that they can escape virginity loss by having oral or anal sex, however, the spiritual aspects of this apply to what happens in the heart and mind regarding the subject of sex.
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Perpetual Virgin Mary
Was Mary a sinless perpetual virgin? Well, scripture says that the only person that never sinned was Jesus (Rom 3:23, Heb 4:14-15, & 2 Cor 5:21), and it also implies that Mary had children with Joseph after Jesus (Acts 1:14), and it specifies that they had intercourse after Jesus was born (Matt 1:25). This seems like a non-biblical church tradition. Believers are only accountable for believing what is written not what we are told out of tradition. There are a lot of traditions that straight-up contradict the bible or are based on pagan traditions in Christendom. This is even true in Judaism, the Talmud records the oral traditions of the Pharisees and includes things never mentioned in the old testament (the Tanakh). In Mark 7:1-13 Jesus called and scolded the Pharisees for teaching man-made traditions, like “Netilat Yadayim” (ritual handwashing) as if they were commands from God. So Jesus is against glorifying traditions that are not instructions from God in scripture. Only scripture is inspired by God. So it’s best if Christians avoid accepting things as if they are backed by biblical authority when they aren’t stated explicitly in scripture or shown by physical historical evidence, especially if contradicted by scripture.
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