Judith  

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The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book, included in the Septuagint and in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible, but excluded by Rabbinical Jews and Protestants. It has been said that the book contains numerous historical anachronisms, which is why many scholars now accept it as unreliable history; it has been considered a parable or perhaps the first historical novel.<ref>See, for example, the 1913 catholic Encyclopedia, which though committed to the historicity of the book, admits and lists "very serious difficulties": [1] </ref>

The name Judith (Template:Hebrew Name) is the feminine form of Judah.

The Book of Judith has a tragic setting that appealed to Jewish patriots and it warned of the urgency of adhering to Mosaic Law, generally speaking, but what accounted for its enduring appeal was the drama of its narrative.

The story revolves around Judith, a daring and beautiful widow, who is upset with her Jewish countrymen for being unwilling to engage their foreign conquerors. She goes with her loyal if reluctant maid Abra to the camp of the enemy general, Holofernes, to whom she slowly ingratiates herself, promising him both sexual favors and information on the Israelites. Gaining his trust (though not having delivered on either promise), she is allowed access to his tent one night as he lays in a drunken stupor. She decapitates him, then takes his head back to her fearful countrymen. The Assyrians, having lost their leader, disperse, and Israel is saved by the hand of a woman. Though she is courted by many, she remains unmarried and pure for the rest of her life.

As a historical tale, its scenes are enlivened and given immediacy by their setting in a definitely characterized (though anachronistic) setting and time and connected, as all historical novels are, with important personages of history — here "Nebuchadnezzar" as a "King of Assyria" who reigns in Nineveh — features it shares with the Book of Esther, the Book of Daniel and its continuations, and the Book of Tobit. Nowhere are the "historical" details introduced in more profusion than in Judith.

With the very first words of the tale, "In the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned over the Assyrians in Nineveh," it is argued by the compilers of the Jewish Encyclopedia that the narrator sets his story in "Once upon a time".

The city called "Bethulia," (properly "Betylua") and the narrow and strategic pass into Judea that it occupies (Judith IV:7ff VIII:21-24) are believed by many to be fictional settings, but some suggest that a city called Meselieh is Bethulia.

The editors of the Jewish Encyclopedia identified Holofernes' encampment with Shechem. The Assyrians, instead of attempting to force the pass, lay siege to the city and cut off its water supply. Judith, the magnificent widow, works deliverance for her city — and thus saves all the kingdom of Judea — by charming the Assyrian captain, Holofernes, then cutting off his head as he sleeps. Thus, Nebuchadnezzar's attempt to conquer Judah (which was successful and quite devastating in reality) is foiled in the narrative.

The Book of Judith was originally written in Hebrew. Though its oldest versions have been translated into Greek and have not been preserved in the original language, its Hebrew origin is revealed in details of vocabulary and phrasing. The extant Hebrew language versions, whether identical to the Greek, or in the shorter Hebrew version which contradicts the longer version in many specific details of the story, are medieval.

Even though the Book of Judith is not part of the official Jewish religious canon, its narrative is associated by many within Orthodox Judaism who place it in the Hellenistic period when Judea battled the Seleucid monarchs. It is regarded as a story related to the events surrounding the military struggle of that time and is believed to be a true reference to the background events leading up to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. (See also 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees).

Judith in later artistic renditions

The Anglo-Saxon abbot Aelfric wrote a homily about Judith. See Judith (homily). A poem Judith in Old English also treats the beheading of Holofernes. See Judith (poem).

In the Renaissance, the story of Judith became an exemplum of the courage of local people against tyrannical rule from afar. The Dalmatian Humanist Marko Marulić (1450-1524) reworked the Judith story in his Renaissance literary work, Judita. His inspiration came from the contemporary heroic struggle of the Croats against the Ottomans in Europe.

Judith and Holofernes, the famous bronze sculpture by Donatello, bears the implied allegorical subtext that was inescapable in Early Renaissance Florence, that of the courage of the commune against tyranny. Michelangelo painted Judith in the corner of the Sistine chapel. Other Italian painters who took up the theme include Botticelli, Giorgione, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Caravaggio, Leonello Spada, Bartolomeo Manfredi and Artemisia Gentileschi. In the north, Lucas Cranach, Rembrandt and Peter Paul Rubens used the story. In European art, Judith is normally accompanied by her maid at her shoulder, which helps to distinguish her from Salome, who also carries her head on a silver charger (plate). However a Northern tradition developed whereby Judith had both a maid and a charger, famously taken by Erwin Panofsky as an example of the knowledge needed in the study of iconography.

In the Renaissance, especially in Germany an interest developed in female "worthies" and heroines, to match the traditional male sets. Subjects combining sex and violence were also popular with collectors. Like Lucretia, Judith was the subject of a disproportionate number of old master prints, sometimes shown nude. Barthel Beham engraved three compositions of the subject, and other of the "Little Masters" did several more. Jacopo de' Barberi, Girolamo Mocetta after a Mantegna design, Parmigianino, and Jacques Callot also made prints of the subject. The first reproductive print of his work commissioned by Rubens was an engraving by Cornelius Galle of his violent "large Judith", now in the Palazzo Barberini.<ref>H Diane Russell;Eva/Ave; Women in Renaissance and Baroque Prints; Nos 20-32, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1990; isbn 155861 0391</ref>

Alessandro Scarlatti wrote an oratorio in 1693, La Giuditta; Juditha triumphans was written in 1716 by Antonio Vivaldi; Mozart composed in 1771 La Betulia Liberata (KV 118), to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. Judith is by Russian composer Alexander Serov.

In 1841 Friedrich Hebbel published his closet drama Judith, but in the English language, blanket censorship of all biblical subjects on the stage set the theme off-limits until the twentieth century, when the British playwright Howard Barker examined the Judith story and its aftermath, first in the scene "The Unforeseen Consequences of a Patriotic Act," as part of his collection of vignettes, The Possibilities. Barker later expanded the scene into a short play Judith.