Judith Series

The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical[a] book, included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible but excluded from the Hebrew canon and assigned by Protestants to the Apocrypha. It tells of a Jewish widow, Judith, who uses her beauty and charm to destroy an Assyrian general and save Israel from oppression. The surviving Greek manuscripts contain several historical anachronisms, so some protestant scholars now consider the Book non-historical: a parable, a theological novel, or perhaps the first historical novel.

The story revolves around Judith; a daring and beautiful widow upset with her Jewish compatriots for not trusting God to deliver them from their Seleucid monarchs.

Original language

It is not clear whether the Book of Judith was originally written in Hebrew or Greek. The oldest existing version is in the Septuagint and might either be a translation from Hebrew or composed in Greek. Details of vocabulary and phrasing point to a Greek text written in a language modeled on the Greek developed through translating the other books in the Septuagint.

It dates to the Middle Ages, whether identical to the Greek or in the shorter Hebrew version, it dates to the Middle Ages. The Hebrew versions name important figures directly, such as the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, thus placing the events in the Hellenistic period when the Maccabees battled the Seleucid monarchs. The Greek version uses deliberately puzzling and old-fashioned references such as "Nebuchadnezzar," a "King of Assyria," who "reigns in Nineveh" for the same king. The adoption of that name, though unhistorical, has been sometimes explained either as a copyist's addition or an arbitrary name assigned to the ruler of Babylon.

Canonicity In Judaism

Although the author was likely Jewish, there is no evidence that the Book of Judith was ever considered authoritative or a candidate for canonicity by any Jewish group.

The Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible does not contain it, nor was it found among the Dead Sea Scrolls or referred to in any early Rabbinic literature.

Reasons for its exclusion include the lateness of its composition, possible Greek origin, open support of the Hasmonean dynasty (to which the early rabbinate was opposed), and perhaps Judith's brash and seductive character.

However, after disappearing from circulation among Jews for over a millennium, references to the Book of Judith and Judith's figure resurfaced in the religious literature of crypto-Jews who escaped capitulation by the Caliphate of Córdoba. The renewed interest took the form of "tales of the heroine, liturgical poems, commentaries on the Talmud, and passages in Jewish legal codes."

Although the text does not mention Hanukkah, it became customary for a Hebrew midrashic[b] variant of the Judith story to be read on the Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath) of Hanukkah; the story of Hanukkah takes place during the time of the Hasmonean dynasty.

That midrash[b], whose heroine is portrayed as gorging the enemy on cheese and wine before cutting off his head, may have formed the basis of the minor Jewish tradition of eating dairy products during Hanukkah.

In that respect, Medieval Jewry appears to have viewed Judith as the Hasmonean counterpart to Queen Esther, the heroine of the holiday of Purim[c]. The textual reliability of the Book of Judith was also taken for granted to the extent that Biblical commentator Nachmanides (Ramban) quoted several passages from a Peshitta (Syriac version) of Judith in support of his rendering of Deuteronomy 21:14.

Canonicity In Christianity

Although early Christians, such as Clement of Rome, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria, read and used the Book of Judith, some of the oldest Christian canons, including the Bryennios List (1st/2nd century), that of Melito of Sardis (2nd century) and Origen (3rd century), do not include it. When he produced his Latin translation, he counted it among the Apocrypha (although he changed his mind and later quoted it as scripture and said he merely expressed the views of the Jews), as did Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Epiphanius of Salamis.

However, some influential fathers of the Church, including Augustine, Ambrose, and Hilary of Poitiers, considered Judith sacred scripture, and Pope Innocent I declared it part of the canon. In Jerome's Prologue to Judith, he claims that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures." However, no such declaration has been found in the Canons of Nicaea. It is uncertain whether Jerome refers to the use made of the Book in the council's discussions or whether he was misled by some bogus canons attributed to that council.

It was also accepted by the councils of Rome (382), Hippo (393), Carthage (397), Florence (1442), and eventually dogmatically defined as canonical by the Roman Catholic Church in 1546 in the Council of Trent. The Eastern Orthodox Church also accepts Judith as inspired scripture, as was confirmed in the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672.