“In Judith, the people find a spiritual mother: the female figure that embodies the fidelity to the Law in times of crisis.”
— Ana Maria Schwemer, exegete contemporary German

Complete study of the Book of Judith

1) Location canonical and reception

• Jewish tradition: Judith does not figure in the Hebrew canon. Does not appear in the rabbinic literature, early and most of the scholars understood that never circulated as Scripture in ancient judaism.
• Christian traditions: Is in the Septuagint (LXX) and this is part of the Old Testament of the Churches catholic and orthodox (deuterocanónico). The Council of Trent (1546) defined canonical to the catholic Church. In the field protestant it is included in the “Apocrypha” (edifying reading, not legislation).
• Witness ancient of the LXX: Judith is present in the major manuscripts, Greek (e.g., Codex Vaticanus lists Judith among his books).

2) Witness textual and original language

• Greek text: The work has come down to us mainly in Greek with more than one recension (line Vaticanus [B] front Alexandrinus/codex Sinaiticus [A/ℵ]). The Vulgate Jerome translated version arámea now lost, and is shorter than the LXX.
• Original language (discussion): Although the text preserved more ancient Greek, abounds in hebraismsand thus , many authors propose a original semitic (Hebrew or aramaic); others argue composition directly in Greek “hebraizante”. Jerome believed that it was “written in the chaldean (arámeo)”.

3) Date and place of probable composition

• Dating usual: the end of s. II. C. (c. 150-100 to. C.), in the cultural setting of the hellenistic period and after the experience hasmonean. The introduction NABRE is the wording “to 100. C.”.
• Literary context: today it is generally considered a novel historical/theological or parable national more than chronic factual, because of the mixture of deliberate names and timelines.

4) Argument and structure

Structure: 16 chapters that can be arranged in two large blocks:
(1-7) campaign general Holofernes submitted by Nebuchadnezzar (presented as a “king of Assyria”, with headquarters in Nineveh) to punish the peoples rebels; siege of Bethulia. (8-16) inrush Judith, widow pious that, after fasting and prayer, enters the enemy camp, seduces the surveillance of Holofernes, decapitates him in the night, he returns with the head; panic assyrian and victoria israelite; song Judith (cap 16).

5) main Characters

• Judith (“jewish”, “praised”): young widow, rich, strictly observant of the Law (kosher, purity, fasting). Model mercy, cunning, courage and female leadership.
• Holofernes: assyrian general, embodies the superb imperial; his drunkenness prepares his fall.
• Achior (Aquir)the ammonite: warning power of the God of Israel; ends incorporated into the village (reason proselítico).

6) Historicity and anachronisms

• Anachronism programmatic: Nebuchadnezzar (in the actual story, king of Babylon s. VI. C.) appears as king of Assyria ruling Nineveh (capital destroyed in 612 to. C.). This “disconnect” is understood today as literary device to condense into a single tyrant the threat of foreign.
• Toponymy problem: Bethulia it is not attested; proposals of identification (e.g., Shechem/Nablus) are based on descriptions of steps and valleys, and already appearing in the Jewish Encyclopedia; others have denied any identification of historic and read it as toponym symbolic (“house of God” or “our lady of YHWH”).
• Conclusion current academic: the work is ahistorical in the strict sense but theologically plausible as an account of uplifting the national.

7) Transmission, manuscripts and versions

• The Greek (LXX): several reviews; Judith figure in Vaticanus, Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus.
• Latin (Vulgate): Jerome declares that the jews were “among the apocrypha', and that resulted from an aramaic in a single night (“hurry monastic”); your version abbreviated in front of the LXX.
• Hebrew medieval: there are two versions Hebrew late, translated from the SEPTUAGINT/Vulgatenot original.

8) what Judith in Qumran?

• The consensus informative and current academic says Judith is not atestiguido among the Dead Sea Scrolls; yes there are apocryphal, as Tobit (in aramaic and Hebrew), and other texts parabíblicos.

9) literary Genre, and the theological purpose

• Gender: historical novel or novel theological patriotic with strong echoes wisdom and prophetic.
• Axes theological:
  1. Sovereignty of God on the empires (1:1 framed geopolitics within the divine plan). 2) Power of prayer and fasting (caps. 8-9). 3) Instrumentality of the weak (God saves “by the hand of a woman”, the investment of power, and in parallel with Esther and Jael). 4) Purity/law as identity against assimilation.

10) literary Messages and symbolic

• The “head” of Holofernes it symbolizes the total defeat of the oppressor and the humiliation of the gods/powers pagans.
• Judith as “widow caste” stresses the moral authority by about the force.
• The song (cap 16) it re-reads the Song of the Sea (Ex 15) to the hellenistic period: God turns to act “today.” (Introduction NABRE).

11) critical Topics of study

• Feminidades and power: Judith is a paradigm of female agency in the Bible; it investigates how it combines seduction rhetoric, mercy and strategy military. (Brine/Ciletti/Lähnemann, The Sword of Judith).
• Politics and nation: reading as resistance anti-imperialist (eclecticism of names assyrian-babylonian-Persian to universalize the enemy).
• Intertextuality: links Esther (woman who saves the town), Deborah and Jael (Judg 4-5).

12) Use liturgical and cultural

• Christian liturgy: Fragments are read in catholic traditions and orthodox (e.g., the hymn").
• Impact and artistic: the scene Judith beheading Holofernes inspired teachers as Caravaggio and Allori, consolidating the occasion of the “femme forte” in the bible arts. (overview in Britannica).

13) reading Guide expert (chapters key)

• Jud 1-3: universalism of the domain of Nebuchadnezzar (the key to read the setting symbolic).
• Jud 8-9: theology of the prayer; keynote speech of Judith.
• Jud 12-13: night operation and beheading.
• Jud 16: song: recap theological victory.

14) Questions open academic

1. Original semitic vs. Greek: how hebraisms = translation or style hebraizante?
2. Bethulia: how pseudonym Shechem or pure symbol of narrative? Lively discussion since the beginning of the XX century.
3. Intentionality policy: do you support or criticism of the regime hasmoneo? (lines are interpretive in specialized literature).

Conclusion

The Book of Judith it is a masterpiece of narrative of judaism, hellenistic articulates, by means of historical fiction deliberate, a theology of resistance: God saves his people by employing “the weak things of the world”, as personified in a widow godly whose intelligence and faith disrupting the hubris imperial. Your not literal historical does not reduce its power theological, ethical, and policy; on the contrary, the universalized. For the contemporary reader, Judith provides a laboratory for reading biblical gender, of identity in front of the empire and active spirituality praying, discerning, plans and acts.