Book of Judith
The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book, included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible, but excluded by Jews and Protestants. It has been said that the book contains numerous historical anachronisms, which is why many scholars now accept it as non-historical; it has been considered a parable or perhaps the first historical novel.[1]
The name Judith (Hebrew: יְהוּדִית, Modern Yehudit Tiberian Yəhûḏîṯ ; "Praised" or "Jewess") is the feminine form of Judah.
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In the Deuterocanon
The Book of Judith has a tragic setting that appealed to Jewish patriots and it warned of the urgency of adhering to Mosaic Law, generally speaking, but what accounted for its enduring appeal was the drama of its narrative. The story revolves around Judith, a daring and beautiful widow, who is upset with her Jewish countrymen for not trusting God to deliver them from their foreign conquerors. She goes with her loyal maid to the camp of the enemy general, Holofernes, with whom she slowly ingratiates herself, promising him information on the Israelites. Gaining his trust, she is allowed access to his tent one night as he lies in a drunken stupor. She decapitates him, then takes his head back to her fearful countrymen. The Assyrians, having lost their leader, disperse, and Israel is saved. Though she is courted by many, she remains unmarried for the rest of her life.
The Book of Judith was originally written in Hebrew. Though its oldest versions have been translated into Greek and have not been preserved in the original language, its Hebrew origin is revealed in details of vocabulary and phrasing. The extant Hebrew language versions, whether identical to the Greek, or in the shorter Hebrew version, are medieval. The Hebrew versions name important figures directly such as the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes, thus placing the events in the Hellenistic period when the Maccabees battled the Seleucid monarchs. The Greek version uses deliberately cryptic and anachronistic references such as "Nebuchadrezzar", a "King of Assyria," who "reigns in Nineveh," for the same king. Roman Catholic scholar Vigoroux found out that the similarity between "Arphaxad king of the Medes" and "Phraortes king of the Medes" and the historical setting of the book help us identify Judith's Nebuchadnezzar with Assurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria and Nineveh, thus setting the story around 650 BCE [2]. This makes it possible to identify "Cheleud" with Chaldea, meaning the Babylonian region, where Assurbanipal's brother Shamash-shum-ukin ruled; this king rebelled against his younger brother, forming a coalition of rebels from Media, Persia and Elam, yet resulting in a defeat by 648 BC. The adoption of that name, though unhistorical, has been sometimes explained either as a copyist's addition, or a voluntary literary name assigned to the ruler of Babylon (more or less as Caesar, in the Gospel, was used for Tiberius in his quality of Roman Emperor).
The historicity and canonicity of the Book of Judith in early Christianity was never disputed before Jerome began to translate the Bible into Latin. The first quote of the Book can be found by the end of the 1st century AD in the First Epistle of Clement[3] to the Corinthians: the story is briefly told by the third Pope, but the narration omits the name of the city of Bethulia and of the king of Nineveh. Anyway, the book is quoted by Pope Clement I side-by-side with the canonical Book of Esther, and both are clearly assigned the same degree of historicity and canonicity. Judith was generally listed among the Anagignoskomena, i.e. those books (now called Deuterocanonical) whom the Church believed to be authoritative despite not belonging in the Jewish Canon. Ambrose of Milan also quotes the book as canonical[4]. The historical identity of Nebuchadrezzar was unknown to the Church Fathers, but some of them attempted an improbable identification with Artaxerxes III Ochus, not on the basis of the character of the two rulers, but because of the presence of a "Holofernes" and a "Bagoas" in Ochus' army. Jerome advanced some doubt regarding the historicity and inspiration of those books which were absent in the Palestinian Canon due to the principle Veritas Hebraica; yet Pope Gelasius I obliged Jerome to obey the canons of the so called third Council of Carthage, held in Africa under St. Augustine of Hippo in 397, which declared the canonicity of the Deuterocanon. The book was thus added by Jerome in his Vulgate, despite being translated from a different text (in Chaldean) then the LXX version used in the early centuries for the Old Latin translations. The Canons of the Council of Carthage were later confirmed by the Quinisext Council, which makes the book a part of the Orthodox Bible; while in the West, the book's canonicity was later ratified at the Council of Trent.
Even though the Book of Judith is not considered a part of the official Jewish religious canon, many within Orthodox Judaism regard it as true reference to the background events relating to military struggle leading up to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. (See also 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees).
The city called "Bethulia," (properly "Betylua") and the narrow and strategic pass into Judea that it occupies (Judith IV:7ff VIII:21-24) are believed by many to be fictional settings , but some suggest that a city called Meselieh is Bethulia.[5]
Main characters
Judith, the heroine of the book. She is a widow, once married to a certain Manasses. She uses her charm to become an intimate friend of Holofernes, but finally beheads him allowing Israel to counter-attack the Assyrians. Holofernes, the villain of the book. He is devout soldier of his king, whom he wants to be exalted in all lands. He is given the task to destroy the rebels who didn't support the king of Nineveh in his resistance against Cheleud and the king of Media, until Israel also becomes a target of his military campaign. Judith's charme will be the cause of his death. Nabuchodonosor, the king of Nineveh and Assyria, whose identity is at present uncertain. He is so proud that he wants to affirm his strength as a sort of divine power. Holofernes, his Turtan, is ordered to take revenge of those who refused to ally with him. Bagoas, a Persian name denoting an official of Holofernes. He is the first one who discovers Holofernes' murder. Achior, an Ammonite king at Nebuchadnezzar's court; he warns the king of Assyria of the power of the God of Israel but is mocked. He is the first one to recognize Holofernes' head brought by Judith in the city, and also the first one to praise Yahweh. Oziah, governor of Bethulia; together with Cabri and Carmi, he rules over Judith's city.
Later artistic renditions
In literature
The Anglo-Saxon abbot Ælfric wrote a homily about Judith. A poem Judith in Old English also treats the beheading of Holofernes, as do lines 122 to 124 of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Merchant (from The Canterbury Tales).
In Renaissance literature, painting and sculpture, the story of Judith became an exemplum of the courage of local people against tyrannical rule from afar. The Dalmatian humanist Marko Marulić (1450–1524) reworked the Judith story in his Renaissance literary work, Judita. His inspiration came from the contemporary heroic struggle of the Croats against the Ottomans in Europe.
In sixteenth-century France, writers such as Guillaume Du Bartas, Gabrielle de Coignard and Anne de Marquets composed poems on Judith's triumph over Holofernes.
In painting and sculpture
The account of Judith's beheading Holofernes has been treated by several painters and sculptors, most notably Donatello and Caravaggio, as well as Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna, Giorgione, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Titian, Horace Vernet, Gustav Klimt, Artemisia Gentileschi, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Trophime Bigot, Francisco Goya, Francesco Cairo and Hermann-Paul. Also, Michelangelo depicts the scene in multiple aspects in one of the Pendentives, or four spandrels on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
In music and theatre
The famous 40-voice motet, Spem in alium by English composer Thomas Tallis, is a setting of a text from the Book of Judith.
The story also inspired a play by Abraham Goldfaden, oratorios by Antonio Vivaldi, and W. A. Mozart, and an operetta by Jacob Pavlovitch Adler.
Alessandro Scarlatti wrote an oratorio in 1693, La Giuditta, as did the Portuguese composer Francisco António de Almeida in 1726; Juditha triumphans was written in 1716 by Antonio Vivaldi; Mozart composed in 1771 La Betulia Liberata (KV 118), to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. An operatic treatment, Judith, exists by Russian composer Alexander Serov.
In 1841, Friedrich Hebbel published his closet drama Judith, but in the English language, blanket censorship of all biblical subjects on the stage set the theme off-limits until the twentieth century, when the English playwright Howard Barker examined the Judith story and its aftermath, first in the scene "The Unforeseen Consequences of a Patriotic Act," as part of his collection of vignettes, The Possibilities. Barker later expanded the scene into a short play Judith.
 Michelangelo's Judith carries away the head of Holofernes |
 Judith I by Gustav Klimt |
References
- ↑ See, for example, the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, which though committed to the historicity of the book, admits and lists "very serious difficulties": [1]
- ↑ Vigoroux, Les Livres Saints et La Critique Rationaliste, iv, 4th ed.
- ↑ "The blessed Judith, when her city was besieged, asked of the elders permission to go forth into the camp of the strangers; and, exposing herself to danger, she went out for the love which she bare to her country and people then besieged; and the Lord delivered Holofernes into the hands of a woman" (First Epistle of Clement, chapter 55)
- ↑ "So then, holy Judith strengthened by lengthened mourning and by daily fasting, sought not the enjoyments of the world regardless of danger, and strong in her contempt for death" Ambrose, Concerning Widows, 7:38
- ↑ "Beside Sânûr, Mithilîyeh, or Misilîyeh, Tell Kheibar and Beit-Ilfa, which have divided opinion for some time, Haraiq el-Mallah, Khirbet Sheikh Shibel, el-Bârid and Sichem (Bethulia being considered a pseudonym) have recently been proposed as sites of Bethulia" <[2]>.
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 Bible Portal |
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- The Book of Judith Full text (also available in Arabic)
- Another text, this one including a link to download as a single document
- Jewish Encyclopedia: Judith
- Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia: Judith: Apocrypha
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Book of Judith
- World Wide Study Bible: Judith
- The New York Public Library's Judith Project
| Preceded by Tobit |
R.Catholic & Orthodox Books of the Bible See Deuterocanon |
Succeeded by Esther |
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