Jan 30, 2012

On today’s lecture we have covered the matters of the first Jewish diasporas, and how they were reflected in Jewish literature. To do that, we looked at Tobit, an interesting mixture of canon and apocryphal literature of between approximately mid-third and early second century B.C.E.

As far as literary works go, Tobit opens a window in the society of displaced Jews: the titular hero and his relatives live in foreign cities, and Tobiah, in particular, has to travel to meet, rescue and marry his cousin Sarah. In Genesis, Abraham’s wife Sarah too lives in a different place than Abraham, but what marks Tobit apart from Genesis is its’ marital urgency and the emphasis matter on family bonds. This reflects the difference in lives of the Jews when Genesis and Tobit were written: at the time of Genesis, the issue of Jews marrying Gentiles was not as acute as it was in Tobit, and Jews had not yet been driven out of Judea, forcing to be dispersed and come into a greater contact with the Gentiles. Still, this similarity implies that Tobit’s author was at least partially inspired by the story of Abraham and Sarah and had incorporated its elements into Tobit.

Another point of difference between Tobit and the saga of Abraham is the presence of Raphael the angel. By the standards of canon Old Testament, the story of Abraham is quite “angel-intense”, since usually God prefers to work behind the scenes, using people such as judges and prophets to do His work, while angels just deliver messages instead. Not so Raphael in Tobit – here he accompanies Tobiah to Sarah, gives him instructions, and helps him get rid of the demon Asmodeus who has plagued Sarah and killed her grooms before.

(This is another point of difference between Tobit and canon Bible: in canon Bible there are no demons; certainly no literal and corporeal demons as the one in Tobit. This, coupled with the fact that Tobit was written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, confirms that Tobit is a much later work than Genesis, for example.)

Raphael the angel, Asmodeus the demon, and the magical fish that Tobiah captured and killed to rescue Sarah and his father are all elements not of the Biblical literature, but of the more basic folklore and magical fairy tales of the ancient Jews: Raphael the angel behaves roughly like Puss in the Boots aiding the hero Tobiah in rescuing his wife-to-be and his father. The speeches of Tobit the titular hero and Sarah, conversely, are much more biblical, reminding their audience of passages from Deuteronomy and reassuring them that the hard times of dispersion (such as Babylonian captivity in past) will pass, and God will punish the wicked and show mercy to the righteous and the true believers, no matter what hardships they will suffer before. This must have made Tobit popular in the past, though not popular enough to be included as canon – it was probably written too late for that, and had elements that may have been too frivolous or comic for the rabbis. Regardless, Tobit is still an educational and enjoyable novella and has attracted readers ever since it was written; I certainly had enjoyed reading it and hope that I will read more pieces like it in the future.