§ 5. DATE OF THE ORIGINAL, AND OF THE VERSIONS

(a) The existing versions thus all go back, through the existing Greek, to the same original, their differences being due to alterations within the versions. It is now generally agreed (against earlier scholars such as Fabricius, Jahn, and Eichhorn) that this original was Semitic, and Hebrew rather than Aramaic. Indeed there can be no possibility of doubt if we consider the style of the Greek and the nature of some of the mistakes in it. The language is not merely that popular Greek which we now know from papyri of the early centuries a.d. to have been identical with the κοινὴ διάλεκτος of the New Testament, even when independent of any Semitic idiom. The translation is so literal that it can be put back into Hebrew with ease, and in some cases becomes fully intelligible only when so re-translated. Moreover, the unusual lack of particles shows that the writer was under the influence of a foreign idiom, while the constant recurrence of phrases uncommon in late Greek but frequent in Hebrew shows incontestably the language of the original. Such are e.g. ἀπὸ προσώπου = מפני, εἰς πρόσωπον = לפני, the frequent use of σφόδρα = מאד, ἐν = בְּ, and many more: see the notes on 4:2, 5:12, 19, 7:10, 28, 12:4, 13:4, 8, 13, 16, 14:2, 6, 11. The same conclusion is indicated by the confusion in the geographical names, due to uncertainty in the mind of the translator as well as to mistakes of copyists, so far as it is not intentional on the part of the author (see § 6). So also in other names, e.g. Achior no doubt = אחיהוד, chosen as meaning ‘friend of the Jews’, with the common confusion of ד and ר.

Against this comparative certainty we have the express statement of Origen (ad Afric. 13), οὐδὲ τῇ Ἰουδὴθ (χρῶνται) οὐδὲ γὰρ ἔχουσιν αὐτὰ καὶ ἐν ἀποκρύφοις ἑβραιστί, ὡς ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν μαθόντες ἐγνώκαμεν, as well as the fact that Jerome did not use a Hebrew text, which he certainly would have done if he had found one. It is possible that in the statement which Origen received from his Jewish informants, stress should be laid on χρῶνται rather than ἔχουσιν, and that it had fallen out of use and was not even included among the apocryphal books at the beginning of the third century. This must have been only temporary, since in 398 Jerome says ‘Apud Hebraeos liber Judith inter apocrypha legitur’. Jerome’s preface is all rather obscure, and it may be that he really means here to indicate a Hebrew text which he knew to exist but did not possess. In the very next sentence he speaks of the Chaldee which ‘inter historias computatur’, a degree lower than apocrypha, and seems to draw a distinction between them. No trace of the Hebrew original now survives.

The story is represented as taking place just after the return from the exile (4:3). The author does not, however, represent himself (as e.g. Daniel) as contemporary with the events recorded. In fact, he must have written much later. The return is far enough away to have become a sort of golden age, a time of simple happiness granted by God in consequence of the piety of the people. In this, as in its details, the description is wholly at variance with history (see § 6), either because the author did not know the facts, or because he was intentionally disguising them. He cannot have written as late as the first century a.d., for the book is quoted by Clement of Rome (1Cor. 55). Moreover, there is no allusion to the final destruction of the temple, nor even to the Roman occupation of Palestine. Jewish tradition connects the story with the time of the Maccabees, making Judith the daughter of Johanan or Mattathia (Zunz, Gottesd. Vorträge, 2nd ed., p. 131), and this date agrees on the whole best with the author’s point of view (see § 9). We must, however, be careful to distinguish between the date of composition and the real or supposed date of the events related (see § 6). The author evidently puts back into his post-exilic story the state of things under which he himself lived. There was no king, but the whole people is united under the High Priest (Joakim) governing with the γερουσία or Sanhedrim. The object of the book, too, is clearly to encourage the nation to resist the enemies of their religion and country even under the most desperate circumstances, and presupposes a time of great political or religious emergency. These several points, as well as the definitely Pharisaic theology, most naturally indicate an author living towards the middle of the second century b.c. Such is the view of Schürer, Hilgenfeld, and Nöldeke. (Cf. also Chajes in Festschrift … Harkavy, p. 105 Heb., who finds a number of parallels with the books of the Maccabees.) Ball proposes a date about 79–70 b.c., and argues with great ingenuity that Judith is modelled on Salome, successively wife of Aristobulus and Jannai, but this seems less probable than the earlier date.

The fact that the book is not mentioned by Josephus or Philo or in the New Testament proves nothing. Josephus does not refer to Job, besides other books, and Philo does not notice any of the Apocrypha.

(b) The versions can only be approximately dated. The earliest reference to the book, and no doubt to the Greek version of it, is by Clement of Rome (1Cor. 55. 4 and 5) about 90 a.d. He alludes to the story as if it were well known to his Greek readers, very much in the same way as he goes on to speak of Esther. Allowing some time for the original book to become established before it was translated, and some time for the translation to become known, we should probably date the Greek not later than the beginning of the first century a.d.

The VL was made from the Greek, and as in Jerome’s time (see § 4) it was already very corrupt, it must have been a long time in existence. The Syriac, which agrees closely with it, was possibly made about the same time from the same Greek text, for the use of oriental Christians. Fritzsche surmises vaguely that both were made between the first and third centuries a.d., and we have no means of dating them more precisely.