Book of Judith Part of Catholic, but not Jewish, Canon
“The book of Judith is not a part of the Hebrew canon. It is an “outside book” …”.[1] Moore gives his reasons for why he thinks the book was not accepted as canonical by the Rabbis, contrasting it here with the fate of the Book of Esther:[2]
The book of Esther had a long and difficult time attaining Jewish canonicity, but it finally did so. … Yet the book of Judith, which in its Semitic form had all the essentials of Palestinian Judaism (i.e., God, prayer, dietary scrupulousness, sacrifice, Temple, Jerusalem – none of which are [sic] even so much as mentioned in the MT of Esther …), was never admitted to the Palestinian canon, nor is the book known to have been present at Qumran.
… Judith may have been excluded from the Hebrew canon because the Rabbis, who were responsible for fixing the canon in the last stages of the canonizing process, disapproved of the book’s universalism, i.e., its accepting attitude toward the towns of Samaria and its approval of an Ammonite’s admittance into the Jewish faith (so Steinmann ….).
… There is genuine merit to Craven’s view that Judith was simply too radical a woman for the rabbis who fixed the Jewish canon to memorialize:
To accept the Book of Judith as a canonical book would be to judge the story holy and authoritative. And to judge the story of the woman Judith holy and authoritative could indeed have been deemed a dangerous precedent by the ancient sages. … she is faithful to the letter of the law but not restricted to traditional modes of behavior. … she fears no one or thing other than Yahweh. Imagine what life would be like if women were free to chastise the leading men of their communities, if they dared to act independently in the face of traumas, if they refused to marry, and if they had money and servants of their own. Indeed if they, like Judith, hired women to manage their households what would become of all the Eliezers of the world?
I suspect that the sages would judge that their communities simply could not bear too many women like Judith. The special genius of this story is that it survived and grew in popularity despite its treatment at the hands of the establishment. ….
Craven again, citing several commentators in support, will refer to “the often made claim that the Book of Judith represents one of the best examples of Jewish story-telling …”.[3]
Moore, with a quote from Orlinsky, now gives what he considers to be the most likely reason amongst those he has already mentioned as to why BOJ was not accepted into the Hebrew canon. And I would agree with his estimation here, though I would note at least also the apparent historical and geographical anomalies in the book:[4]
However, the most likely reason for Judith’s omission from the Hebrew canon is, as H. M. Orlinsky (Essays in Biblical, pp. 279-81) has noted, that the rabbis could not accept it because the book ran counter to their halakah … that a Gentile convert to Judaism had to be circumcised and baptized in order to become a Jew. … In other words, not only did Judith have Achior, an Ammonite, accepted into Judaism, which in itself ran counter to Deut 23:3 … but he was not baptized.
To canonize a book – that is, to make it officially a source of doctrine – when the doctrine did not conform to that of the canonizers, was too much to ask. The Book of Esther, with all its “faults”, offered nothing specific that violated Pharisee halakah. (p. 218)
Enslin, too, has focussed primarily upon the apparently irregular Achior-as-an-Ammonite situation, as the reason for BOJ’s not having become a part of the Hebrew canon, comparing - and contrasting - it with the unusual situation of Ruth:[5]
The author of the book relates that after the triumph of Judith, an officer in the camp of Holofernes, Achior, an Ammonite, “joined into the house of Israel”. According to the Pentateuch, “An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of Yahweh, even to the tenth generation shall none of them enter into the assembly of Yahweh forever” [Deuteronomy 23:4] …. If the book of Judith should gain acceptance into the Holy Scriptures, it would contradict the Pentateuchal laws. It is true that Ruth was a Moabite and she converted to Judaism, nevertheless the book of Ruth became a part of the Holy Scriptures. The sages, in order to reconcile the contradictory and opposing view between the book of Ruth and the Pentateuch, declared that the Pentateuchal prohibition regarding the Ammonite and the Moabite referred only to the male but not to the female …. Thus the book of Ruth could be very well accepted in the Hebrew canon.
He goes on to tell which Jewish sage it was who was of sufficient authority to have prevented canonical acceptance of BOJ: namely, Gamaliel:[6]
It is also true that sages during the Second Commonwealth encouraged proselytism regardless of race and no obstacles were placed against the Ammonites. A Mishne relates: “On that day, came Judah, an Ammonite proselyte, and stood before them in the Beth Hamidrash, and said to them, ‘May I enter into the community?’ Rabban Gamaliel said to him: ‘You are not allowed.’ Rabbi Joshua said to him: ‘You are allowed’.” … Thus we have to conclude that in the academy of Javneh there was a division of opinion among the sages regarding the acceptance of Ammonite proselytes. The opinion of Rabbi Joshua became the established law. The opinion of Rabban Gamaliel, however, was enough to keep the book of Judith from inclusion in the Hebrew Bible.
Enslin, continuing on with his discussion of Achior, now turns to a consideration of circumcision and baptism:[7]
Again, it is stated in the book of Judith that when Achior converted to Judaism, he was circumcised; it does not say that he was baptized. During the Second Jewish Commonwealth, the ritual of immersion was not required for conversion to Judaism. At the conclave of the year 65 CE, it was decreed that a proselyte must go through the rites of baptism in order to enter the Jewish community. … The fact that in the book of Judith it is stated that Achior became a proselyte by circumcision alone without baptism was enough to keep the book out of the Hebrew canon. If this book should be included in the Hebrew Bible, it would mean that the book of Judith was holy and authoritative; thus there would be a contradiction between the statement in Judith and the decree of the sages who maintained that baptism is a sine qua non.
As his final reasons for BOJ’s non acceptance into the Hebrew canon, Enslin will argue that the book was written too late for it to have been an ‘inspired’ text, and, moreover, it was written in the ‘diaspora’:[8]
The book of Judith was written in a late period, after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, as we shall subsequently show. According to the rabbinic tradition, books written after the Persian period were not “inspired” … thus they could not be a part of the Hebrew Bible. Esther’s story was placed in the time of Ahasuerus, while the story of Judith was placed after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes [sic], long after prophecy ceased in Israel. Again, the book of Esther was written in Judaea, while the book of Judith was compiled in the diaspora, and that is also a good reason for its not being included in the Hebrew canon.
No books written in the diaspora were included in the Hebrew Bible.
Damien F. Mackey has already though, in Chapter 7 of his post-graduate thesis, A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background, begun to pave the way for a resolution to the Achior problem, which is apparently the most serious obstacle to the Book of Judith’s canonical acceptance,[9] by hinting at an identification of Achior with Ahikar, a nephew of Tobit, and hence a Naphtalian Israelite, not an Ammonite. He then discusses this Achior in more detail later in this chapter (e.g. pp. 46-47), along with the other matters raised by Enslin, of late authorship, and, supposedly written in the diaspora (e.g. pp. 58-59).
Catholic Canon
“Although the book did not form part of the Hebrew Canon”, as Leahy explains:[10]
… the [Catholic] Church considered it from the beginning as divinely inspired, having received it together with the other sacred books contained in the LXX. It was quoted with approbation by Clement of Rome (I Cor 55) and cited on an equality with other Scripture by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 2, 7), Origen (De Orat. 13, 29; Hom. 9 on Jg; Hom. 19 on Jer.) and Ambrose (De Off. Min. 3, 13). The Councils of Hippo (A.D. 393) and Carthage (A.D. 397 and 419) enumerated it among the canonical books. St Augustine (De Doctrina Christiana 2, 8) had it on his list of sacred books.
And Dumm tells:[11] “[Judith] never came into the Hebr. Canon, but it was adopted for reading for the feast of Hannukah, and even Jerome [who did not accept the book as canonical] admitted that the work was “read” in the Church. Final recognition of its canonicity came with the Council of Trent”. Consequently, as Leahy explains (regarding the early C20th view):[12]
The vast majority of Catholic critics regard the book as a record of fact and they endeavour to answer the difficulties urged in the name of history against its accuracy. The arguments which they advance are the following: (a) Jewish and Christian tradition and all commentators prior to the sixteenth century regarded the book as historical; (b) the minute historical, geographical, chronological and genealogical details indicate a straightforward narrative of real events; (c) the author speaks of descendants of Achior being alive in his time (14:6), and a festival celebrated annually up to his day in commemoration of Judith’s victory (16:31). Those who uphold the historicity (or, at least, a historical nucleus) of the narration take the view that ‘Nabuchodonosor’ and ‘Arphaxad’ are pseudonyms disguising historical persons whose identity cannot be ascertained with certainty.
[1] M. Enslin, The Book of Judith, p. 24. Cf. Leahy, op. cit, ibid.
[2] Op. cit, pp. 86-87.
[3] Op. cit, p. 6 and n. 20.
[4] Op. cit, p. 87. “Halakah”, Moore notes, “is that body of Jewish Law in the Talmud which interprets and supplements the laws of the O.T”, n. 75.
[5] Op. cit, pp. 24-25.
[6] Ibid, p. 25.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid, pp. 25-26.
[9] Moore has allowed for the possibility of “a number of considerations” rather than simply “the [one major] reason why Judith was not included in the Jewish canon”. Ibid. His emphasis.
[10] Op. cit, ibid.
[11] Op. cit, ibid.
[12] Op. cit, ibid.
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