by
Damien F. Mackey
“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”.
Toni Craven.
Hebrew Canon
“The book of
Judith is not a part of the Hebrew canon. It is an “outside book” …”, wrote theologian
M. Enslin (The Book of Judith, 1972,
p. 24). C. Moore gives his reasons as to why he thinks that this
particular book was not accepted as canonical by the Rabbis, contrasting it
here with the fate of the Book of Esther (The
Anchor Bible. Judith, vol.
40, Doubleday, NY, pp. 86-87):
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 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 [T.] Craven’s view [Artistry
and Faith in the Book of Judith, 1983] 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. ….
Toni
Craven again, citing several commentators in support of her view, will refer to
“the often made claim that the Book of Judith represents one of the best
examples of Jewish story-telling …” (op. cit., p. 6
and n. 20).
C.
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 the Book of
Judith [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 (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):
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 (op.
cit, pp. 24-25):
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
here which Jewish sage it was who was of sufficient authority to have prevented
canonical acceptance of BOJ: namely, Gamaliel (ibid., p. 25):
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:
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’ (ibid, pp. 25-26):
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.
Hopefully
I myself have 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 - by my arguing for an identification of Achior
with Ahikar, a nephew of Tobit, and hence a Naphtalian Israelite (Ephraïmite),
not an Ammonite:
Achior the Ephraïmite
Catholic Canon
“Although the book
did not form part of the Hebrew Canon”, as M. Leahy explains (‘Judith’, A
Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, 1953):
…
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
D. Dumm tells (‘Tobit, Judith, Esther’, The Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1968): “[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):
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.
However, as I have
attempted to demonstrate in many articles on the subject such as, for instance:
“Nadin went into everlasting darkness”
and:
Hezekiah's Chief Official Eliakim was High Priest
the account of
Judith is a pure history, though it, in its present form, akes a lot of
de-coding.
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