No it isn't 'strictly liturgical', as my previous post details - It's common meaning, outside of it's military root, is 'assemble' or 'assembly'... a grouping or group, or mustering, the act of forming a group. In fact, of the translations I have available, *none* use 'minister' in the verses you quote, with the general consensus being to 'perform' or to 'serve'... From that, 'ministering' could be inferred, no doubt, but since the passages are speaking to time frames of service rather than actual acts of service, 'You will assemble to perform or serve' would be a clearer sense than 'You will minister'. And such a reading would be more in line with how the word is translated elsewhere.
And even if I were to give you 'ministering' and allow a liturgical sense (which I will not), it would only open a possibility, as one is not required to allow the same sense in regard to the passages you offer with regard to an order of Temple virgins. One would still be obliged to read those passages using the common sense of the term primarily, and not jump to a use of special circumstance.
Which you could have verified yourself, but instead chose to sidetrack into a dictionary meaning, which, of course, does not contradict the liturgical usage anyway.
I did do exactly that, and my previous post speaks to that with specificity. Your interpretation would require a liturgical sense from two out of fourteen uses of the word, and by extrapolation, adopt two more of the remaining twelve verses into that sense... I am not requiring the ministerial sense, so I can allow the fourteen proof texts to remain within their common sense (or within their military sense, from which the word is derived). I see no need to modify the meaning beyond it's natural use.
Really? I always though that κατάκλειστοι IS "cloistered". So "shut up" virgin means something other than "under lock in a building"? Or "shut up" means "in a building" but never, ever "in a temple building"? No kidding?
Who would think of locking up their virgin daughters while a foreign military troop is inside the gates? How absurd is that reading? No one EVER did that in bygone days... Far better to assume cloistered nuns, even though there is no evidence of such a thing in Judaism... And why would anyone think against them being locked up in a temple where their very presence would require their death? Far better to invent a special circumstance to allow for temple virgins...
Indeed. Mishna Shekalim, Babylonian Talmud Kethuboth, Pesikta Rabbati, 2 Baruch. Their word.
Not at all - Their word on those passages, their tradition, allows for no such thing. One must impose the meaning you seem to desire.
The dictionary meanings indeed embrace other settings, but the usage in Num 4:23 and in Num 8:24 describe a service of some kind at the tabernacle, so however you want to translate that, these two usages are liturgical and not, for example, military.
jump to a use of special circumstance
What special circumstance? In Num 4:23 and in Num 8:24 men are serving at the tabernacle and in Exodus 38:8 and 1 Samuel 2:22 women are doing the same. Nothing special here: all these usages are similarly worded and describe some liturgical function (the tabernacle is a liturgical object).
Who would think of locking up their virgin daughters while a foreign military troop is inside the gates? How absurd is that reading? [...] Far better to assume cloistered nuns
Ah, good point. Indeed, if κατάκλειστοι were to mean "placed under lock so that they don't escape" then indeed that would make no sense. If however, they are cloistered, that is live separately because they want to, then it makes every sense that they flock to the priest in the moment of crisis or "throw themselves in the flames" as Pesikta Rabbati describes them. No one is saying that they were in every respect as Catholic nuns, just that they were separated from the other folk in the way allowing for the description κατάκλειστοι, and had access to the high priest.
their tradition, allows for no such thing
So these texts, a part of the Jewish tradition, are not allowed by the Jewish tradition? Huh?