Background and History

The chapters above are the King James Apocrypha. This essay is the setting of Judith: who is said to have written it, when and where the book places the story, what happens in it, which copies have been found, and why the Protestant canon does not include it.

Canon and Authorship

The Catholic Encyclopedia says Judith is absent from the Hebrew Bible and therefore from the Protestant canon, while the Church has maintained its canonicity. Church Lists quotes the later decrees, including Westminster Confession 1.3 .

The book does not name its writer. The encyclopedia records that Jerome says he translated it from the Chaldaic in one night, and that the names Judith, Achior, and Bethulia sound symbolic. Judith 1:1 calls Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians in Nineveh. Bethulia, the encyclopedia says, has not been found.

At a Glance

Author	The book does not name its writer. Jerome says he translated it from the Chaldaic in one night.
Date	The Catholic Encyclopedia says Nebuchadnezzar came to the throne in 605, and that Nineveh was destroyed not later than 606.
Place	The book names Nineveh. The Catholic Encyclopedia places Bethulia on the southern verge of the Plain of Esdrelon and says no trace of that city has been found.
Genre	A narrative of a siege, a widow’s killing of the besieging general, and a hymn.
Chapters	16
Verses	339 in this King James Apocrypha
Key verse	Judith 1:1 Apocrypha Not part of the 66-book Protestant canon. Catholic and Orthodox churches accept these books as deuterocanonical. In the twelfth year of the reign of Nabuchodonosor, who reigned in Nineve, the great city; in the days of Arphaxad, which reigned over the Medes in Ecbatane,Judith 1:1 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source

Setting

Judith 1:1

In the twelfth year of the reign of Nabuchodonosor, who reigned in Nineve, the great city; in the days of Arphaxad, which reigned over the Medes in Ecbatane,Judith 1:1 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source opens in the twelfth year of Nabuchodonosor, “who reigned in Nineve, the great city,” in the days of Arphaxad, who reigned over the Medes in Ecbatane. The Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes the plot: Holofernes besieges the Jews in Bethulia, Judith kills him, and the book closes with her hymn.

The Text

The encyclopedia says the book exists in distinct Greek and Latin versions, and that the Greek contains at least eighty-four verses more than the later Latin. Jerome’s preface says he translated from the Chaldaic in one night, aiming at sense rather than word for word, and that his copies differed. The Greek has come down in two recensions: Vaticanus on one side, and Alexandrinus with Sinaiticus on the other.

Manuscripts

The same article describes a long Hebrew version close to the Greek, a short Hebrew version, and the lost Chaldaic Jerome used. It does not report a Dead Sea Scroll of Judith. The Dead Sea Scrolls contents page opened for this collection names Ben Sira, Tobit, and the Epistle of Jeremiah, and it does not name Judith.

Structure and Themes

The encyclopedia’s outline is the embassy of Achior, the siege and the famine, Judith’s night in the Assyrian camp, the general’s death, the rout, and the hymn. It says Catholics, with very few exceptions, have read the book as a narrative of facts, and that Jerome, who excluded Judith from the canon, still treated the woman as historical.

Rulers at the Time

The encyclopedia’s historicity section says Nabuchodonosor was apparently never king of Nineveh, because he came to the throne in 605, whereas Nineveh was destroyed certainly not later than 606, after which the Assyrians ceased to exist as a people. It records a conservative attempt to identify him with Assur-bani-pal, and another reading in which the enemy is Seleucus. Those are the encyclopedia’s reports of the argument. A modern name for Nineveh was not added.

Issues With This Book

The sentence in Judith 1:1

In the twelfth year of the reign of Nabuchodonosor, who reigned in Nineve, the great city; in the days of Arphaxad, which reigned over the Medes in Ecbatane,Judith 1:1 · King James Version (Apocrypha)Open source is the geographical and historical problem the encyclopedia lists first: Nebuchadnezzar as king of the Assyrians in Nineveh. The article also says Bethulia is a mystery, that the names Judith, Achior, and Bethulia sound symbolic, and that the book is absent from the Hebrew Bible and therefore from the Protestant canon, while the Church has maintained its canonicity. The Church Lists section quotes the later decrees.

On This Site

These articles quote the church lists and the passages that those lists argue from. They link back to this collection.

Church Lists

The Council of Trent, session 4 (1546), receives Tobias, Judith, Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch with Jeremiah, Daniel, and two books of Maccabees, and it anathematizes a knowing refusal. That decree’s first and second books of Esdras are Ezra and Nehemiah, not the books titled 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras in this King James Apocrypha. The decree does not name the Prayer of Manasseh as its own book. The English of the decree is quoted on How Was the Bible Canon Decided, and What Is the Apocrypha?

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 120 says the Church discerned the canon by apostolic Tradition and counts 46 Old Testament books, including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

The Confession of Dositheus, from the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672, answers “What Books do you call Sacred Scripture?” by naming, among the books Cyril Lucaris had called Apocrypha, “The Wisdom of Solomon,” “Judith,” “Tobit,” “The History of the Dragon,” “The History of Susanna,” “The Maccabees,” and “The Wisdom of Sirach,” and it says “we judge these also to be with the other genuine Books of Divine Scripture genuine parts of Scripture.” That sentence, on the English hosted by CRI/Voice, does not name 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, or the Prayer of Manasseh. The host says the English is adapted from J. N. W. B. Robertson’s 1899 translation. The brackets around “Bel and the Dragon” on that page are the editor’s.

Anglican Article VI says the other books, “as Hierome saith,” the Church “doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” The article’s other books include the Third and Fourth of Esdras, Tobias, Judith, the rest of Esther, Wisdom, Jesus the Son of Sirach, Baruch, the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer of Manasses, and the First and Second of Maccabees. Its canonical First and Second of Esdras are Ezra and Nehemiah. The sentence is on the Articles of Religion and on What Do Anglicans Believe?

The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.

That is Westminster Confession 1.3, as printed by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. What Do Protestants Believe? quotes the same paragraph.

The Lutherhaus Wittenberg records a complete German Bible of 1534, printed by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg, titled Biblia, das ist, die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch. A Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek record of a 1536 Lufft Apocrypha title page reads “Apocrypha. Das sind Bücher: so nicht der heiligen Schrifft gleich gehalten: und doch nützlich und gut zu lesen sind.” Bruce Metzger, writing in Christianity Today in 1957, says the 1534 edition gathered the books between the Old and New Testaments under that heading and did not include 1 and 2 Esdras. The 1534 leaf itself was not opened for this page.

The New Testament and These Books

These pages do not cite a sentence in the New Testament that names Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, or Maccabees as Scripture. Jude 14 says Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, and the next verse continues that prophecy. First Enoch is not one of the fourteen books in this King James Apocrypha.

1 Maccabees 9:27 says there was great affliction in Israel, “the like whereof was not since the time that a prophet was not seen among them.” 2 Maccabees 15:38 is the writer’s own limit: if the story is done well, that is what he desired, and if slenderly and meanly, that is what he could attain.

2 Maccabees 12:44 says that if Judas had not hoped the slain would rise, it would have been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. Verse 45 says he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin. This King James text has no verse 12:46. The Catechism’s footnote 607 names 2 Maccabees 12:46 for that reconciliation. Is Purgatory Biblical? quotes the churches on that dispute and does not decide it.

Tobit 12:9 says alms deliver from death and shall purge away all sin. Sirach 3:30 says water quenches a flaming fire and alms make an atonement for sins. Those sentences are what the pages that discuss almsgiving and atonement are quoting. This site does not have a separate article whose only subject is alms.

Jewish Lists

Josephus, Against Apion 1.8 (William Whiston’s translation), says the Jews have “only twenty two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine,” five of them Moses, thirteen the prophets after Moses through Artaxerxes, and four hymns and precepts. History written since Artaxerxes “hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of Prophets since that time.”

Jerome’s prologue to Kings, the Prologus Galeatus, in Kevin P. Edgecomb’s public-domain translation, counts twenty-two books and says “whatever is outside of these is set aside among the apocrypha.” He names Wisdom, “the book of Jesus son of Sirach,” Judith, and Tobias as not in the canon, and he says the first book of Maccabees is Hebrew and the second is Greek. The translation is at tertullian.org.

Athanasius, Festal Letter 39 (367), counts twenty-two Old Testament books and includes “Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the epistle” as one book. He then names Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobit as “not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read.” The English is the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers text on New Advent.

Melito of Sardis, quoted by Eusebius in Church History 4.26.14, lists the Old Testament books he learned in the East. The list includes “Wisdom also” and does not name Tobit, Judith, Sirach, or the books of Maccabees.

The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), “Bible Canon,” says the Jewish canon is twenty-four books: the five of the Law, eight of the Prophets, and eleven Writings. It summarizes the baraita in Bava Batra 14b as Law; Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets); and Writings (Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles). That summary does not include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch as its own book, or Maccabees. The English of the Talmud on Sefaria is copyrighted, so this page does not reprint it.

3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and Psalm 151 are not in this King James text.

Judith