A Pious Seductress: Studies in the Book of Judith

236 Pages·2012·3.117 MB·English, German

by  Géza G. Xeravits (editor)

A Pious Seductress
Deuterocanonical and
Cognate Literature
Studies
Edited by
Friedrich V. Reiterer, Beate Ego, Tobias Nicklas
Volume 14
De Gruyter
A Pious Seductress
Studies in the Book of Judith
Edited by
Geza G. Xeravits
De Gruyter
ISBN 978-3-11-027994-8
e-ISBN 978-3-11-027998-6
ISSN 1865-1666
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books (6th : 2009 : Bu-
dapest, Hungary)
A pious seductress : studies in the book of Judith / [edited by] Geza
G. Xeravits.
p. cm. — (Deuterocanonical and cognate literature studies ; v. 14)
"The present volume contains papers delivered at the International
conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, held at the Sapientia College
of Theology, Budapest, Hungary, 14—16 May, 2009" — Preface.
Contains one essay in German; all others in English.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-3-11-027994-8 (hardcover 23 x 15,5 : alk. paper)
1. Bible. O.T. Apocrypha. Judith — Criticism, interpretation, etc. —
Congresses. I. Xeravits, Geza G. II. Title.
BS1735.52.I58 2009
229'.2406—dc23
20110439139
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet
at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
© 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
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Preface
The present volume contains papers delivered at the International Con-
ference on the Deuterocanonical Books, held at the Sapientia College of
Theology, Budapest, Hungary, 14-16 May, 2009. The contributions ex-
plore various aspects of the Book of Judith: its textual versions, histori-
cal background, theological ideas and literary afterlife.
The editor expresses his gratitude to the contributors for their kind
cooperation both in organising the conference and in completing this
volume. Thanks are due to the staff of the Department of Bible, Sapien-
tia College of Theology for their invaluable help during the conference
and the editing of the volume.
Budapest
6. August, 2011
Geza G. Xeravits
editor

Table of Contents
Preface v
Stephen D. RYAN:
The Ancient Versions of Judith
and the Place of the Septuagint in the Catholic Church 1
Jeremy CORLEY:
Imitation of Septuagintal Narrative
and Greek Historiography in the Portrait of Holofernes 22
Gabriele BOCCACCINI:
Tigranes the Great as "Nebuchadnezzar" in the Book of Judith 55
Ellen JUHL CHRISTIANSEN:
Judith: Defender of Israel—Preserver of the Temple 70
Michael WOJCIECHOWSKI:
Moral Teaching of the Book of Judith 85
Thomas HIEKE:
Torah in Judith. Dietary Laws, Purity
and Other Torah Issues in the Book of Judith 97
Friedrich V. REITERER:
"Meines Bruders Licht." Untersuchungen zur Rolle des Achior 111
Geza G. XERAVITS:
The Supplication of Judith (Judith 9:1-14) 161
Judith LANG:
The Lord Who Crushes Wars.
Studies on Judith 9:7, Judith 16:2 and Exodus 15:3 179
Eszter BALASSA:
The Consequences of Dinah's Rape 188
Karin SCHÖPFLIN:
Judith on Stage. The Dramatic Career of a Biblical Heroine 198
Index of Ancient Jewish and Christian Passages 215
Index of Authors 223

The Ancient Versions of Judith
and the Place of the Septuagint
in the Catholic Church
STEPHEN D. RYAN O.P.
In the concluding pages of his 1966 book on the diverse textual tradi-
tions of Judith, the French Dominican Andre-Marie Dubarle asked an
intriguing question: "Which text of Judith is canonical?"1 The diversity
of Greek and Latin forms of the Book of Judith which have been re-
ceived by the Catholic Church presents both theoretical questions
about Biblical inspiration and practical questions about the form of the
text of Judith to be translated in Catholic Bibles and lectionaries. While
Dubarle's focus was on the relative theological status of the Hebrew
and Greek texts of Judith, this paper examines the status of the Greek
and Latin versions, specifically Jerome's Vulgate and the Nova Vulgata,
and follows the scholarly consensus holding that the Hebrew texts of
Judith are late and secondary.
In 1860, the reformed scholar Gustav Volkmar noted that Jerome's
preface to Judith presents a problem for Catholic theologians. Volkmar,
who held the Vulgate text of Judith to be historically worthless, posed
the problem this way:
A more difficult cross could not have been imposed on Catholic theology
than trying to uphold on the one hand the decree of the Council [of Trent]
on the Vulgate, even for the Book of Judith, and on the other hand not to-
tally abandoning the claim to Wissenschaft.2
In seeking to articulate a theological account of the status of the Greek
and Latin texts of Judith that does justice to both the textual history of
this deuterocanonical book and to the Catholic theological tradition, the
work of Adrian Schenker is particularly helpful. Schenker has articu-
lated a theological vision of the place of the Septuagint in the Church
that can both account for its privileged status, and at the same time
1 DUBARLE, Judith 1,179.
2 VOLKMAR, Judith, 10.
2 S.D. Ryan
provide a rationale for modern translations to be based on the original
languages of the Old Testament.3 His work establishes principles useful
in any consideration of the place of the Septuagint, the Vulgate and the
Nova Vulgata in the Catholic Church. After briefly describing the an-
cient versions of Judith and comparing the Greek and Latin versions of
several illustrative passages, I will use Schenker's work to illustrate
how magisterial teaching, textual criticism, and a Catholic doctrine of
inspiration may be applied to Judith.
The Ancient Versions
Helmut Engel defines the original language of Judith as that language
in which the original author wrote and thought.4 Both Engel and Jer-
emy Corley hold that this was most likely Greek, or, in Engel's words,
Septuaginta-Griechisch. That is, Greek written in the style of Septuagint
Greek, perhaps, as Corley suggests, by an author for whom Greek was
a second and acquired language.5 A brief review of the most important
versions of Judith is given below.
The Greek Texts
The original Greek text of Judith was composed in the Hasmonean era,
between 161 BC and 63 BC.6 The earliest physical witness to the book is
the 3rd century AD ostracon containing Judith 15:1-7 that was discov-
ered in 1946.7 The principal Greek texts can be arranged into the follow-
ing groups: the LXX uncials (BSAV); the O-Text (58-583); the Lucianic
(19, 108, 319); Recensions a and b.8 Modern critical editions from both
Cambridge and Göttingen give approximations of the original Greek
text.
3 SCHENKER, Septuaginta, 459-464; L'Ecriture Sainte, 178-186; Die Heilige Schrift, 192-
200.
4 ENGEL, Der HERR, 156.
5 CORLEY, Septuagintalisms, 67.
6 CORLEY, Septuagintalisms, 74.
7 SCHWARTZ, Un Fragment Grec, 534-547.
8 HANHART, Iudith, 4-5; Text und Textgeschichte, 11-12.