An Almanac of Tobit Studies: 2000-2014

Abstract

Arguably the most influential moments in the entire history of Tobit studies were the acquisition of the Qumran cave four Aramaic and Hebrew Tobit fragments in 1952 and their eventual publication in 1995. In light of these events, this article surveys the major advancements in resources and research on the book of Tobit since the turn of the millennium. The present survey establishes the status quaestionis on matters of Tobit’s compositional origins (i.e., language, date, and provenance) as it has emerged in several recent articles, monographs, and commentaries. Following the treatment of background issues, three thematic sections capture the major trends in recent Tobit studies. These include: (1) theories of Tobit’s scribal transmission and related text-critical issues, (2) questions of source material and intertextuality in Tobit’s composition and reception, and (3) a reappraisal of central narrative-theological features in Tobit (i.e., marriage and family, perspectives on burial, and the functions of food) and their potential insight into the book’s socio-historical contexts in ancient Judaism. The study concludes with some brief recommendations and open-ended questions for future research on the book of Tobit.

Keywords

Apocrypha Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls Septuagint Tobit transmission of Tobit intertextuality of Tobit endogamy burial food

Introduction

The present evaluation of the state of research on the book of Tobit is the third of its kind in less than 25 years. Moore’s review (1989) appeared a few years before the Dead Sea Scrolls were jail-broke in 1991, and Spencer’s (1999) a few short years after 1995, which saw the official publication of the Qumran Tobit texts in the DJD series (Fitzmyer 1995a: 1-76). The need for yet another pulse-check on this area of study is largely due to the fact that the full implications of these watershed moments in Tobit studies are still being worked out in the scholarly guild. The explosion of interest in Tobit is evidenced by the publication of several text editions, commentaries, handbooks, thematic volumes, monographs, a growing list of journal articles, and at least one international conference that have focused directly on this little ancient Jewish tale.

The present article aims to give a sense of the larger conversations that have centered on Tobit since the year 2000, though at times it will be necessary to wind the clock back a few years earlier to contextualize the developing history of research. I begin by providing a prospectus of the major scholarly resources currently available for Tobit studies (text editions, commentaries, monographs, etc.). Following this I give an overview of the status quaestionis on matters of the book of Tobit’s origins, such as its language, place, and time of composition. The remaining pages of the survey detail the major themes and issues in current research in three broad sections: perspectives on Tobit’s transmission history and text-criticism; Tobit’s use of sources and intertextuality in composition and reception; and insights into Tobit’s narrative and socio-historical worlds by its presentation of family, funerals, and food.

Text Editions and Manuscript Rediscoveries since 1995

Fitzmyer’s publication of the Qumran Tobit materials shifted many agendas in research. However, this did not mark the end of the publication of ancient Tobit witnesses. Five years after the publication of the Tobit fragments in the editio princeps, Fitzmyer reprinted his transcription, translation, and textual notes in a more affordable volume of collected studies (2000b: 159-235). Beyer’s ongoing publication project of the Aramaic Scrolls en masse came to its conclusion in a third volume of texts and German translations. Beyer’s readings of the Qumran Tobit materials are interspersed throughout each book of the trilogy (1984: 298-300; 1994: 134-47; 2004: 172-86). A revised version of Hallermayer’s doctoral dissertation at the University of Regensburg has given the field a third edition of the Qumran Tobit texts (2008). Where Hallermayer’s volume excels beyond her predecessors is in the discussions of textual variations among the witnesses, a factor not included in Beyer’s editions, and an aspect that Fitzmyer reserved largely for his subsequent Tobit commentary (2003). Di Lella completed a much-needed translation of Tobit in the New English Translation of the Septuagint (Pietersma and Wright 2007), which presents the text in parallel columns reflecting the so-called ‘long’ and ‘short’ versions represented in Greek chiefly by Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, respectively.

The discovery of ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Tobit texts among the Scrolls also sparked fresh interest in comparative philological and text-critical analyses with other known witnesses. Such research is now aided by two synopses. Wagner’s polyglot edition (2003) presents the Greek, Latin, and Syriac witnesses in parallel columns, with the Qumran texts separated out in their own section of the book. In some ways this segmentation diminishes the usability of what is otherwise a fine volume. Weeks, Gathercole, and Stuckenbruck (2004) achieved a clearer organization by presenting the multilingual and versional evidence for Tobit in a verse-by-verse format. Both synopses are prefaced with concise summaries of the contents and characteristics of individual manuscripts and traditions (Wagner 2003: xx-xxxi; Weeks, Gathercole, and Stuckenbruck 2004: 9-59). A critical edition of the Vetus Latina of Tobit is in preparation by Auwers (as reported by Fitzmyer 2000b: 139, n. 30; Knibb 2006: 168; Skemp 2000: 3; Weeks 2006: 16, n. 22). While not an edition or collection of synopses in the proper sense, Skemp’s (2000) comparative study of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate and other ancient witnesses of Tobit contains a good deal of textual data and helpful discussions of variations among the traditions.

Recent years have also witnessed a steady flow of recovery and publication of individual Tobit manuscripts of various provenances. Hallermayer and Elgvin (2006) published another Aramaic Tobit fragment from Qumran cave four from among the Schøyen collection (ms 5234). The fragment contains seven partial lines from Tob. 14:3-4 and was originally thought to have come from the same manuscript as 4QpapTobit^a (4Q196), although it is now recognized that it attests to a sixth Tobit manuscript at Qumran. This latest fragment is slated for republication as 4Q196a in the coming year (Elgvin 2014). As reported in a recent article by Weeks (2013: 3, n. 6), there are rumors that yet another fragment of this manuscript is held in a private collection. The roster of medieval and early modern period Hebrew texts of Tobit has also increased thanks to some fortuitous rediscoveries in archives and libraries. These include a folio containing Tob. 4:6-5:9 in a fifteenth/sixteenth-century codex among the Cairo Genizah materials of the Cambridge University Library (Bhayro 2009) and a fresh appraisal and translation of the Hebrew ‘Fagius’ version of Tobit in light of corresponding thirteenth-century fragments among that same collection (Stuckenbruck 2005).

Commentaries and Handbooks: Current and Upcoming

The industry of Tobit resources, driven in part by the Qumran finds, has produced several detailed commentaries with the promise of a few more in the years to come. Fitzmyer’s commentary (2003) is primarily textual-literary in its approach. While the depth and detail of textual comments in individual volumes of the DJD series varies appreciably, it is safe to say that Fitzmyer’s discussion on the Qumran Tobit fragments in the official edition was rather lean. Thus the textual notes in his commentary are a welcome complement to his earlier work. Fitzmyer’s 88-page introduction covers all of the matters one might expect to find in the lead pages of a commentary (genre, language/date, teaching, structure, reception, etc.), and is the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey of such background issues. With the acquisition of the Anchor Bible imprint by Yale University Press, Moore’s 1996 commentary on Tobit was reprinted in 2010. While the reprint was not updated or expanded, Moore’s discussion of introductory matters and commentary remains a valuable sparring partner in current research. (Due to its republication at this time I will include Moore’s perspectives when pertinent to the topics detailed below.) The book of Tobit has also been subject to brief description in a handful of recent one-volume commentaries on the Bible. These include the treatments of Fitzmyer in The Oxford Bible Commentary (2001: 626-32), Grabbe in the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (2003: 736-47), and Stuckenbruck in The New Interpreter’s Bible: One Volume Commentary (2010: 540-47). Ego’s German commentary on the book of Tobit was published on the eve of the new millennium in 1999, but since it has not figured in previous surveys of research I will include her insights below when relevant. A second German-language commentary by Schüngel-Straumann appeared shortly thereafter in 2000. Aspects of Tobit’s early reception and history of interpretation in Christianity may now be studied with the aid of the pertinent patristic sources collected in a recent volume of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture with a focus on the Apocrypha (Voicu 2010: 1-33). Septuagint Tobit has been the subject of one commentary, with two more underway. Littman’s commentary (2008) is bifurcated into two sections which provide text, translation, and discussion of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. Two separate volumes on the Septuagint versions of Tobit were assigned to Boyd-Taylor as part of the SBL Commentary on the Septuagint Series. Two other noteworthy commentaries in progress are Dimant’s, in the Hermeneia series, and Stuckenbruck’s, in the newly minted Eerdmans Illuminations commentary series. Lastly, while not a commentary in the traditional sense, Otzen’s short guide to Tobit (2002) covers much the same ground on compositional and literary-theological matters that are found in the aforementioned exegetical resources. Tobit has been the subject of three major volumes as of late (Bredin 2006; Corley and Skemp 2005; Xeravits and Zsengellér 2005), and a number of dissertations-turned-monographs (Hallermyer 2008; Kiel 2012; Macatangay 2011; Miller 2011; Skemp 2000), the individual insights of which I will highlight in the following sections.

Tobit’s Vital Signs: Date, Language, and Place of Composition

The interrelated questions of where, when, and in what form the book of Tobit first emerged have received significant attention since the discovery of the Qumran finds. For some, the cave four fragments sufficiently answered questions of Tobit’s unknown past. For others, they allow for tracing Tobit’s biography back one step further, to the book’s adolescence, as it were, but do not proffer insight into the literary birth and early years of the book of Tobit. Conversations on Tobit’s compositional language, date, and provenance are ongoing in the scholarly guild, with some broad areas of consensus. To gain a sense of the status quaestionis on these core issues I will survey their new developments and directions in turn.

Language of Composition: Aramaic or Hebrew?

Much of the relevant bibliography for the debate over Tobit’s language of composition is found in secondary literature of the mid-1990s. Notable advocates of composition in Hebrew in these early years include Beyer (1984: 229; 1994: 134) and Wise (1993). Fitzmyer (1995b) and Cook (1996) were among the first to critique such claims and argued compellingly that Aramaic was most likely Tobit’s compositional language. Recent years have witnessed a growing number of proponents of Tobit’s initial composition in Aramaic, making the Hebrew manuscript 4QTob^e most likely an early translation. In recent research, Fitzmyer has continued to develop the case that the Aramaic of Tobit is a good representative of Middle Aramaic (ca. 200 bce to 200 ce), not unlike the language of the Genesis Apocryphon, the cave 11 Job translation, or the Aramaic Enoch fragments. The main features Fitzmyer highlighted to authenticate Tobit’s idiom as good compositional Aramaic from this period are as follows (2003: 25-27; see also 1995b: 665-66; 2000b: 145-47):

The masculine demonstrative pronoun is always דן, never דנה/דנא.

The relative pronoun is uniformly די. The earlier form זי and later form דְּ are not used.

The adverb ‘there’ occurs in the form תמן, not תמה as in biblical or imperial Aramaic. A similar situation obtains for the usage of the adverb ‘here’, in the form תנא.

The third plural masculine pronoun אנון reflects common usage in the Genesis Apocryphon and Aramaic Enoch texts, over and against the forms המו and המון, which abound in biblical Aramaic.

There is some preference for using aleph over heh in prefixed verb forms. While there is mixed usage in the aphel and haphel conjugation(s), there is a clear preference for aleph in the formation of ithpeel, ittaphal, and ophal verbs.

There is some evidence where the nun is not assimilated to the following letter at the end of a closed syllable.

When an accusative marker is present it is always ל and never ית.

A recent study by Machiela and Perrin (2014) made a new inroad into the old problem of Tobit’s compositional language by describing how aspects of its literary-philological character closely cohere with contemporary Aramaic texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, not least the Genesis Apocryphon. This vantage point offers ancillary and corroborative evidence for Fitzmyer’s linguistic argumentation, since it can be shown that Tobit’s literary profile is best accounted for within the world of mid-Second Temple period Aramaic writings. While few other studies rehearse or add to the case for Tobit’s composition in Aramaic, there is a growing consensus in recent research that the book of Tobit was penned in the Aramaic language (see Bauckham 2006: 155; Bernstein and Koller 2012: 182-84; Dimant 2009c: 347 [compare also Dimant 2009a: 122]; Ego 1999: 879-81; Flint 2013: 88-89; Goldman 2013: 241; Kiel 2008: 91, n. 35; Otzen 2002: 61).

However, not all are convinced that Tobit was first penned in Aramaic. There remain some significant outlying voices advocating alternative positions. Since the proposals of Beyer and Wise, E. Eshel is the most recent proponent of Tobit’s composition in Hebrew. In a summary of pseudepigrapha at Qumran, she noted that in light of the move to translate some Hebrew literature into Aramaic in the mid- to late Second Temple period, it would be quite unexpected for the book of Tobit alone to resist this trend (2009: 590-91). Therefore, on the basis of probability, Eshel concluded that 4QTob^e provides early evidence of Tobit’s origination in the Hebrew language.

A few scholars have cautiously adopted indeterminate positions between the options of Aramaic and Hebrew. At the heart of Schmitt’s study on 4QTob^e lies the question ‘War die Originalschrift aramäisch oder hebräisch abgefaßt?’ (‘Was the original text [of Tobit] written in Aramaic or Hebrew?’) (2001: 579). Schmitt determined that the Qumran evidence is inconclusive on this matter, which places significant limits on our ability to reconstruct the earliest text form for the book (see below). In similar stead, Macatangay concluded in his survey of the issue,

In the end, it is doubtless difficult, if not herculean, to ascertain based on lexical criteria which language first gave expression to the story of Tobit since all that the Qumran fragments confirm is the fact that Hebrew and Aramaic were the two commonly spoken languages which could have easily exerted mutual influence over each other during the time of Tobit’s writing. (2011: 17)

Collins stated that, while the Qumran evidence disqualifies Greek as a viable option for Tobit’s compositional language, these finds tell us only that the ‘original language was surely Aramaic or Hebrew’ (Collins 2005: 34). Grabbe adopted a similar viewpoint, writing that ‘It is not absolutely clear whether the original language was Hebrew or Aramaic’ (2003: 737). Jacobs averred that Tobit’s composition in Aramaic ‘remains to be proved’, and called special attention to the significance of this matter to the separate issue of determining the language of the Vorlage of Septuagint Tobit (2010: 1314). The study of the Qumran Aramaic texts now benefits from two recent linguistic grammars (Muraoka 2011; Schattner-Rieser 2004). While neither tackles the problem of Tobit’s original language, the inclusion of data from 4QpapTob^a and 4QTob^b–d suggests that the language of these materials is at least beneficial to our understanding of Aramaic at this time.

In light of this ongoing debate, it would be an overstatement to claim consensus for Tobit’s composition in Aramaic, although this perspective has certainly won the day in many corners. What this perspective does benefit from is a strong substantiating case developed on both literary and linguistic grounds. This is something that is greatly lacking on the other side of the debate: to date, there has been no attempt to develop a sustained and focused argument for Tobit’s composition in Hebrew out of data intrinsic to the manuscript evidence. This is perhaps due to the paucity of text available in 4QTob^e and its minimal overlap with the cave four Aramaic Tobit texts. What is left, then, for proponents of Tobit’s Hebrew composition is the discomfort with the possibility that a Second Temple work could be translated from Aramaic into Hebrew. Rather than confirming Tobit’s composition in Hebrew, it seems that 4QTob^e provides either an exciting new opportunity to explore the potential significance of the domestication of an Aramaic writing into the native tongue of Israelite/Jewish tradition or a dose of caution to scale back slightly the certitude that is often claimed for Tobit’s Aramaic beginnings.

Compositional Date

There is something closer to consensus regarding the time frame in which Tobit likely emerged; although, on this issue too there is a good mix of speculation and skepticism. The Qumran Tobit fragments provide a working terminus ante quem by virtue of their scribal hands, which have been dated in the neighborhood of 100 bce to 25 ce (Fitzmyer 1995a: 7, 41, 57, 61, 63). The lower limit of the chronological window for Tobit’s composition, however, is not as easily discerned. Ego preferred a date in the late third to early second century bce (1999: 899-900). Fitzmyer advocated the ‘widely-held dating of the Book of Tobit … somewhere between 225 and 175 bce’, with a preference for ‘a date toward the end of the period’ (2003: 51-52). He listed three main criteria to support this narrowed chronological gap, which are emblematic of this perspective on Tobit’s date (see also Moore 2010: 40). First, there is a scriptural consciousness of the authority of the Pentateuch and prophetic literature, which points to a post-exilic date, after the fourth century bce at the earliest. Second, there is neither hint of the turmoil associated with the Hellenization attempts of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-64 bce) nor the ensuing Maccabean revolt in 165 bce (see also Collins 2005: 25). Third, ‘there is none of the characteristic sectarian tenets of the Qumran community or of its apocalyptic or messianic expectations, which came into existence sometime between 150 and 125 bce’ (Fitzmyer 2003: 52). In light of such guideposts, it is not uncommon for scholars to opt for a midpoint in the time frame specified above by locating Tobit’s composition at or around 200 bce (Frölich 2005: 59; Miller 2011: 11; Otzen 2002: 57).

The criteria outlined above may help narrow the chronological window of Tobit’s composition but there is room for some nuance. Suspect of the certitude offered by traditional criteria for dating Tobit, Bauckham concluded that ‘Neither a date earlier in the Hellenistic period (or even the late Persian period) nor a later second-century date is impossible’ (2006: 155). His reasons for relaxing the bounds of Tobit’s compositional date are as follows:

On the one hand, it [the book of Tobit] presupposes the building of the Second Temple (14.5) and probably the final editing of the Pentateuch. On the other hand, the lack of belief in a personal destiny after death (also characteristic of Ben Sira) suggests a relatively early date. But the book’s failure to reflect either the events or the spirit of the Maccabean period does not necessarily, as has been commonly held, make it ‘unquestionably pre-Maccabean’ [contra Moore 2010: 41], since this would not be surprising in a work written, as we shall argue Tobit was, in the eastern Diaspora and for the exiles of the northern tribes. (2006: 154-55)

Likewise, Jacobs critiqued that the allowance of a latest possible date of 175 bce due to Tobit’s apparent lack of knowledge of the Antiochene crises is ‘an argument from silence’ (2010: 1314). Grabbe noted that perhaps more significant than the absence of allusion to themes associated with religious-political upheavals of 175-65 bce in Judaea is that the book of Tobit also makes no mention of the sweeping conquest of Alexander the Great in the century prior (2003: 737). Such an early date may be tempered somewhat by the language of the Qumran Aramaic Tobit fragments, which ‘does not look particularly early’ (2003: 737). In light of these uncertainties, Grabbe deduced that ‘There does not seem to be anything to rule out a composition in the late Persian period (i.e., before 330 bce) but a date in the third century is probably more likely because of the language’ (2003: 737). Moore overviewed the ways in which some of the literary and theological ideas found in Tobit comport with those of ancient Jewish literature of the third century bce (2010: 41-42). All told, Moore concluded that none of the criteria currently on offer is ‘persuasive, let alone decisive’, stating that ‘their cumulative effect makes a composition date no earlier than ca. 300 bce quite plausible’ (2010: 42).

The chronological boundaries at either end of the possible time frame for Tobit’s composition are sure to shift in future research. If all of the above conversation partners are heard equally it is reasonable to suggest that the current perspective on Tobit’s compositional date has not moved much beyond the upper limit of the mid- to late second century bce, depending on whether one interprets the omission of Antiochene/Maccabean themes as lack of knowledge or lack of interest. On the lower end of things, there is a growing movement to push the earliest possible date back into the early or mid-third century bce.

Place of Composition

The issue of Tobit’s provenance is closely related to its original language and date, and as such invites both debate and speculation. Here again, certainty on the matter is not to be found and diversity of opinion reigns. Fitzmyer observed that, since Aramaic was the lingua franca of the ancient Near East until the time of Alexander the Great, if Tobit was written in this language, its author (and audience, for that matter) could have hailed from almost anywhere across the fertile crescent, even as far as Egypt (2003: 53). Conversely, if it originated in Hebrew, then this would almost certainly narrow the field to Tobit’s production in a locale somewhere in Judaea (Fitzmyer 2003: 53). As was seen above, discussions on the date of Tobit are often, in part, oriented around geopolitical events and their potential religious ramifications for ancient Jews living in Judaea. It is reasonable to suggest, then, that such criteria would have implications for how far afield from Jerusalem the book of Tobit might have come.

Most often inquirers of Tobit’s provenance look for internal clues in the work’s narrative. Frölich has rightfully critiqued that the ‘Oriental locale and historical motifs [in the book of Tobit] do not prove that the story was written in the place and time it depicts’, rather what such data confirm is familiarity with traditions associated with those historical settings (2005: 59). Zsengellér amassed a helpful survey of the locales claimed as Tobit’s birthplace in the history of research (2005: 177-78, n. 1; see also Fitzmyer 2003: 53-54; Moore 2010: 42-43). Since the issue was first broached in nineteenth-century scholarship, toponyms that have been suggested include: Nineveh, Babylon, the Eastern Diaspora, Egypt, Persia, Media, Syria, and Samaria. In short, virtually every region across the ancient Near Eastern atlas has at one point or another been suggested as the place responsible for Tobit’s origination! Grabbe’s summary of the situation captured well the open-endedness of scholarly opinion on the matter of Tobit’s provenance:

The story [of Tobit] is set in the diaspora, but it begins in the land of Israel. The writer seems to have knowledge of the diaspora, though his knowledge of the geography of Mesopotamia appears to be deficient (see on 5:4-6). It could have been written almost anywhere in the ancient Near East. Egypt is presented as a very distant country (8:3), which might suggest that it was less likely as the home of the writer (though Egypt was clearly a long way from Ecbatana, wherever the story was written). Although somewhere in Syria or Mesopotamia is perhaps the most likely place of origins, there is nothing so far to rule out its having been written by a Jew living in Palestine. (2003: 737)

In recent research the list of possible provenances has been far less extensive than those included in the surveys of Zsengellér and Grabbe. Moore (2010: 43) and Otzen (2002: 58) opted for a location in the Eastern Diaspora. Ego did likewise, but emphasized the book has a distinctly ‘jüdisch-jerusalemischen Perspektive’ (Jewish-Jerusalem perspective), which cannot be overlooked (1999: 898-99). Bauckham offered the most advanced theory of Tobit’s Diasporic origins, concluding that the work was likely penned in the Eastern Diaspora, somewhere other than Media, but perhaps Babylon (2006: 159, 163). Bauckham’s conclusion on social location is deeply enmeshed with his innovative yet controversial understanding of Tobit as a parabolic rehearsal of Israel’s history and eschatological hopes of restoration told from the perspective of a deported Israelite tribe of the north. In contradistinction to these, Fitzmyer has been the most recent advocate of shifting the question of Tobit’s provenance away from the Diaspora to a homeland setting. After surveying the development of the issue in brief, Fitzmyer concluded, ‘Although it is difficult to choose between Palestine and the eastern diaspora as the place of composition of the Tobit story, the likelihood is that it was composed within Palestinian Judaism, which can be seen in Tobit’s interest in his homeland and in the Jerusalem Temple to be rebuilt’ (2003: 54). This outlook is, however, not necessarily indicative of Judaean origin. As Zsengellér’s study on the frequency, spread, and theological associations of toponyms in the Tobit narrative determined, the author no doubt had a foot in two worlds, both of which are marked by a special affinity for Jerusalem: ‘if the book [of Tobit] was written or edited in the diaspora, then the editor of the book was surely a member of the Judean exile. If it was produced in Palestine then surely it was in Yehud or exactly in Jerusalem’ (2005: 182; see also Frölich 2005: 59, n. 2).

Major Themes and Topics in Recent Research

The sections that follow aim to describe some of the issues that have been at the center stage of research since the year 2000. These include: contemporary perspectives on Tobit’s transmission history, the sources and influences operating in the background of the book of Tobit, and some focal points on Tobit’s narrative and theology that have been of recurring interest, including marriage, burial, and food.

The Ongoing Task of Untangling Tobit’s Transmission History

Closely related to the issue of Tobit’s original language of composition are questions around how, within a few centuries of its inception, the book of Tobit bloomed into a multilingual and versional piece of literature. Well before the Qumran Tobit texts were available to scholars and the public, Milik perceived their value for understanding the backgrounds of later text forms. In his Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea, one of the first popular introductions to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Milik called attention to the close proximity of the cave four Tobit texts to the longer Greek version, attested chiefly by Codex Sinaiticus (1959: 31-32). As the heir and completer of Milik’s work on these materials, Fitzmyer’s research has substantiated this claim in broad strokes. However, he appropriately nuanced that ‘some of the Qumran Aramaic forms of the Tobit story differ in slight details in the few instances where there are overlaps, and where one can compare the wording, there are small divergences’, making it necessary ‘to recognize that the Aramaic form of the Tobit story may not have been absolutely uniform in all details and that slightly different copies of it circulated’ (Fitzmyer 2000b: 142). The sudden availability of early evidence for a work that was known formerly by diverse versions spanning from antiquity to the Middle Ages provides new data for the old question of Tobit’s transmission. There exists a spectrum of opinion, however, regarding how the data are to be appropriated and what text-critical vistas they open.

Relying heavily upon Fitzmyer’s linguistic arguments for Tobit’s composition in Aramaic, Otzen deduced the following scenario for the transmission history of the work:

The picture [of Tobit’s Semitic language transmission] is certainly blurred, but it is hardly too audacious to assume (1) that the original Tobit story from the eastern Diaspora was in Aramaic, (2) that it was copied several times, so that the various copies were not totally identical, (3) that it was rather soon translated into Hebrew, and (4) that this translation was, eventually, copied. This was the situation when the Greek translation or translations were produced. (Otzen 2002: 61)

As will be seen shortly, it is entirely possible that several scholars would balk at Ozten’s clear-cut and confident reasoning. Having said that, if Tobit’s composition in Aramaic is accepted, then Otzen has succinctly captured the stages of what is the most likely scenario for Tobit’s early transmission and translation. Additionally, he has rightly highlighted the internal diversity of the earliest Aramaic evidence, which is a recognition that has been enhanced further by another recent study’s innovative exploration of Jerome’s Vulgate.

Skemp’s doctoral dissertation, written at the Catholic University of America, and published in the year 2000, approached the issue of Tobit’s early transmission using the Vulgate as the control variable. Skemp sought to analyze (dis)agreements between Jerome’s Latin rendering and other ancient witnesses—particularly the Qumran and Old Latin texts—in order to establish Jerome’s translation technique (2000: 1-2). Since Skemp accepts Jerome’s claim to have based his translation on an Aramaic Vorlage, the project has the potential of isolating secondary changes that arose at the level of translation, making it theoretically possible to mine below these for earlier strata of text-critical significance. Indeed, some of Skemp’s conclusions run along these lines. For example, he found that, while there is little in the way of independent correspondence between the Vulgate and Qumran Tobit texts, once the paraphrases, omissions, additions, and reconfigurations that may be attributed to Jerome himself or his reliance on the Old Latin are separated out, ‘the evidence indicates that Jerome’s Aramaic Vorlage differed considerably from the extant Qumran Aramaic fragments’ (2000: 467). Fitzmyer corroborated this finding and wondered exactly ‘what sort of Aramaic text Jerome was using’ (2000b: 137, 143). For all its prospect and promise, however, Skemp’s method is not without its problems. As one reviewer of Skemp’s monograph highlighted, the issue with the resultant portrait of Jerome’s purported Vorlage is that ‘we have no trace of an Aramaic text close to the Vg’ (Cody 2003: 456). Further, while Skemp acknowledged that Jerome’s self-disclosure of using an Aramaic base text is potentially spurious (2000: 20), his study rests heavily on this claim, which is at the very least suspect in light of the broad indebtedness of Vulgate Tobit to the Old Latin. Despite these problems, the value of Skemp’s study is twofold: he at once repositioned Jerome’s Vulgate as a viable text-critical partner as well as highlighted its importance for the book of Tobit’s reception history and early history of interpretation.

Skemp did not claim the ability to reconstruct Jerome’s Aramaic Vorlage, no less an Urtext of the book of Tobit as a whole, but the method of his study espoused the ability to gain glimpses of the former, which perhaps aid in advancing toward the latter. There has been a strong contingent of scholars from the University of Regensberg who have advocated that the pluriform nature of the ancient Tobit texts places significant restraints on our ability to reconstruct the earliest form of the book. Schmitt (2001) problematized the matter from the perspective of the Qumran texts, with a particular focus on the fragmentary Hebrew manuscript 4QTob^e. Following a brief linguistic analysis of vocabulary items, syntax, and orthography/morphology, Schmitt described the language of this cave four text as ‘Mittelhebräischen’ (middle Hebrew), not unlike the language of Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezra–Nehemiah, 1–2 Chronicles, and Ben Sira (2001: 575-78). An implication of this assessment seems to be that the language of the scroll could very well be compositional Hebrew or the handiwork of a translator who skillfully rendered an Aramaic tale into the idiom and style of late biblical Hebrew. Schmitt noted further that alleged Hebraisms or Aramaisms cast little light on the question of which language came first in Tobit’s composition history, since both linguistic registers in the Second Temple period would have acquired influence from the other (2001: 579-80). (This topic could benefit from a more detailed treatment in light of Stadel’s recent tabulation and discussion of Hebraisms in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls [2008].) In light of the Qumran evidence, the most that can be said is that from a very early time the book of Tobit existed bilingually (Schmitt 2001: 582). For Schmitt, since the Qumran evidence is inconclusive on the original language of Tobit, the earliest evidence available for the book in effect short circuits the text-critical task of reconstructing its earliest version.

In similar form to Schmitt, Nicklas and Wagner (2003) argued that a synoptic approach to the book of Tobit is necessary to do justice to the textual diversity that is apparent in our collection of ancient witnesses. The impossibility of reconstructing an Urtext for the book of Tobit is argued by four theses. First, there are a number of Greek texts, not least P. Oxy 1594 and 1076, which do not fit neatly into the three-version model advanced primarily by Hanhart (1983: 29-36) (Nicklas and Wagner 2003: 144). Second, the Aramaic and Hebrew Tobit texts discovered at Qumran must not be interpreted as a singular witness that establishes the priority of the longer form of the work known principally by Codex Sinaiticus and the Old Latin; rather, the Dead Sea Tobit manuscripts indicate the plurality of Semitic-language Tobit texts (Nicklas and >Wagner 2003: 151). Third, the paradigm shift engendered by the Qumran finds that give priority to the longer version of Tobit, typically equated with Codex Sinaiticus and the Old Latin, revealed new dilemmas in the textual study of Tobit (e.g., what text to follow or reconstruct when Sinaiticus is corrupt as in the lacunous sections of Tob. 4:7-19; 13:6-10) (Nicklas and Wagner 2003: 154). Fourth, there is a methodological impasse in that the diversity of evidence indicates that the book of Tobit, like other ancient literature, was created, in part, through the ongoing participation of scribes and translators in the transmission process. This reality creates problems for both text and literary critics as it is possible to perceive what Ulrich has described as ‘multiple literary editions’ in the Tobit witnesses (Ulrich 1999: 53) (Nicklas and Wagner 2003: 156). This criticism highlights the broader anachronism of how the canonization process of biblical literature in general has resulted in favoring one form of a given work above all others.

Hallermyer, a once doctoral student of Schmitt’s, further problematized the matter of seeking an Urtext for the book of Tobit. Using Tov’s text-critical discussions of early textual entities and the problems of equivalent readings in multiple versions as a departure point (Tov 1992: 167, 174, 176), Hallermyer averred that the textual evidence for the book of Tobit itself argues against the notion of a single textual product from which all others derive (2008: 20-23). She challenged this notion on several fronts. First, the Greek traditions of the Septuagint provide our most complete view of Tobit in antiquity, and even there the text is known by at least three versions. Second, it cannot be determined if the available Greek texts are translated from Aramaic or Hebrew sources, which are known only in part from the Qumran finds. Third, there is a need to account for both translation dynamics as well as the likelihood of theological exegesis in the transmission process. In light of such methodological issues, Hallermyer concluded that, at best, the earliest text form of Tobit is elusive in the available manuscript evidence. While it is worthwhile and necessary to compare variations among the multilingual and versional Tobit traditions, the text-critical quest for an Urtext cannot come at the expense of losing sight of the pluriform nature of our earliest witnesses (2008: 23).

Weeks responded to the Regensburg contingent’s reluctance to move beyond pluriformity and attempt to untangle at least some threads of Tobit’s complicated textual history. In direct critique of Nicklas and Wagner, Weeks approached the issue with primary reference to Greek Tobit and secondary interest in the role of the Qumran and Latin witnesses. Weeks’s argument extends from the methodological critique that text criticism on Tobit is beset ‘by thinking too much in terms of recensions and too little in terms of texts’ (2013: 7). To be sure, Weeks acknowledges the difficulties and limitations in ‘our ability to deal with the primeval soup of the early Greek tradition’ (2013: 8), but nonetheless, endeavored to show that navigating this body of witnesses is possible through a reconstruction of Tob. 4:7-19, a section that is ‘famously lacking in Sinaiticus’ (2013: 10-15). In another study, Weeks developed another sort of resource by presenting a list of 248 variant readings, oriented around the third Greek version, to aid in exploring differences and similarities between this and other known traditions (2006: 24-40). In these recommendations which focused largely on Greek Tobit, Weeks granted the Qumran and Old Latin materials a similar text-critical value, insofar as both aid in authenticating readings in the Greek text that plausibly derive from earlier textual forms (2006: 17-18; 2013: 9-10). From these contributions, it is evident that it is possible to collaboratively and respectfully use combinations of Tobit witnesses in some textual reconstructions without diminishing their inherently diverse nature.

One of the more promising trends in recent research is that topical studies are increasingly taking Tobit’s complex transmission history and diversity of witnesses seriously, even using it as an opportunity to uncover different literary, theological, and sociocultural layers of manuscript witnesses. For instance, Nicklas framed his study on marriage in the book of Tobit with the pointed methodological question, ‘Which Tobit-text shall be taken, if theological questions concerned with the book of Tobit are asked?’ (2005: 139-40). Hieke’s study on the same topic highlighted how, in various ways, the longer Greek version has enhanced the concern for endogamy by applying it to the tribal sphere, whereas, the Vulgate has all but expunged the interest in endogamy from Tobit’s narrative (2005: 109). Using textual diversity to her advantage, Ego explored a series of variant readings at Tob. 6:15 in light of Hellenistic and ancient Near Eastern binding/loosing incantation rituals for divorcing a spirit from its host (2006: 373-77). Lastly, Bredin endeavored to capture how replacing the name ‘Nahum’ with ‘Jonah’ in Tob. 14:4, 8 in Codex Vaticanus was a scribal means of accentuating the theological coherency of Tobit, since the books of Jonah and Tobit share an eschatological hope for all nations (2006: 51). From a text-critical perspective, of course, many readings among the witnesses may be weeded out as secondary. From the perspective of reception history, however, such differences provide great insight into the ongoing interpretation that is essential to the book of Tobit’s biography.

This awareness of the shades of meaning in our Tobit witnesses is a convenient point of departure for exploring how recent scholarship has sought to refine our understanding of the sources and influences operating in the background of the book of Tobit.

Sources and Intertextualities: Trajectories in and through Tobit

At the outset of a section on the style and sources of the book of Tobit, Fitzmyer observed the far-reaching influence of the Hebrew Scriptures upon Tobit’s author: ‘it is clear that he was a devout Jew, well acquainted with his Hebrew Scriptures, for his writing is heavily Jewish, deriving much of its phraseology and the development of its episodes from biblical books’ (2003: 35). Added to this are inklings of other sources outside of those received in the Hebrew Bible that seem to have figured in Tobit’s compositional process. There has been a strong thrust in recent studies on Tobit to map out such intertextual networks as well as to trace the trajectory further and detect how the book of Tobit potentially influenced other ancient Jewish and Christian authors. To get a sense of these facets of research it will be helpful to survey which works have been drawn into discussions of Tobit’s composition and reception.

Genesis and Its Aramaic Retelling in the Genesis Apocryphon

The relationship between Tobit and Genesis was first explored by Abrahams in a short article in 1893. Since then, several important studies have continued to work out the formative role of Genesis on the characterization and episodic plot structure of the book of Tobit. Recognition of Genesis in Tobit’s background has become so commonplace that it is often assumed without further comment (see, for example, Frölich 2005: 66). However, in the last 14 years the bibliography on this topic has grown by three key studies.

Novick described how Isaac and Abram’s journey to Moriah in Genesis 22 provided the pattern for Tobias and Azariah’s journey from Ecbatana to Nineveh in Tobit 6 (2007). Among the many similarities in structure and staging between these two narratives, Novick uncovered some intriguing phraseological echoes that further confirm Tobit’s allusion to Genesis. Most significantly, he observed the mirroring of the twice-repeated phrase ‘and the two of them went along together (וילכו שניהם יחדו)’ in Gen. 22:6, 8 and the Aramaic text of Tob. 6:6 ‘and the two of th[e]m went [to]gether (ואזלין תריה[ו]ן [כ]חדא)’ as recovered from 4QTob^b 4 i 11 (see also Tob. 6:2 at 4QTob^b 4 i 5) (Novick 2007: 757-58). Novick tallied other shared features between the two narratives and argued that the author of Tobit’s ‘protracted imitation’ of Genesis cannot be explained as incidental echoes; rather, his strategic evocation of this patriarchal episode was intended to encounter scriptural tradition and enrich the interpretation of Tobiah’s journey (2007: 761). The resultant product of ‘biblicized narrative’ is one in which ‘The [scriptural] plot is abstracted, pried away from its concrete particulars, and made capable of regenerating itself in other contexts’ (2007: 762-63).

Adopting a panoramic view, Nowell described how the ‘characters and the flow of the plot [of Tobit are] modeled on Genesis as a whole, telling the story of two patriarchs [Tobit and Raguel] who “sojourn” outside the land of promise’ (2005: 3-4). This description allowed for the weaving of Genesis into a multivalent tale, which at times blends motifs and qualities from different parts of Genesis into a single episode or character in Tobit. For example, Tobit’s two patriarchs, Tobit and Raguel, are both shown to resemble the patriarch Abraham (2005: 4-6). Similar patterning takes place with the matriarchs of Genesis, whose literary portraits affected the creation of Anna and Sarah in Tobit (2005: 7). Nowell drew these and other strands together to highlight how ‘The Book of Tobit brings encouragement to its audience, Jews living in the Diaspora. God’s promises to the ancestors have not failed; the ancient stories are still reflected in the daily lives of faithful people’ (2005: 13).

In view of Nowell’s last observation, Tobit’s recontextualization of Genesis may also be considered in light of another approximately contemporary Aramaic writing that does likewise, the Genesis Apocryphon from Qumran cave one. In a comparative study, Machiela and Perrin (2014) explored how Tobit and the Genesis Apocryphon exhibit affinities in literary character, purpose, idiom, and relationship to the book of Genesis. While some shared elements are to be attributed to independent encounters with common pools of tradition, some, such as the use of a shared ‘endangered bride type-scene’ in 1QapGen XIX–XX and Tob. 6–8, suggest that the pair of writings originated in closely related scribal circles, and perhaps indicate that the author of Tobit was not only aware of the book of Genesis but also of its Aramaic retelling in the Genesis Apocryphon (2014: 127-32). This example is one of several potentially significant indicators that suggest the author of Tobit used the Hebrew Scriptures alongside and possibly through the lens of other Second Temple period traditions.

Exodus Overlaid

While Macatangay’s 2011 monograph, a revision of his S.T.D. dissertation completed at the Pontifical Gregorian University in the year prior, focused primarily on the structure and logic of Tobit’s wisdom discourses, he did so in part by describing how the author of Tobit encountered wisdom traditions in a creative conversation with other influences. The book of Exodus was one such influence. Macatangay sought to map a series of narrative and theological parallels (2011: 157-59) which suggest that

The writer [of Tobit] alludes to Exodus as a form of narrative re-enactment. In an act of dialogue, the writer employs various elements from this primordial experience to describe the shape of exilic living and the hopes that can be had based on such reading and re-appropriation of past events of history. It is not only during the days of exodus, but also in the erratic present, that God, whose ways are wise, is Lord of history. (2011: 165)

While some of the echoes Macatangay detects tend toward the general, his basic recognition of the shared settings and outlooks of Tobit and Exodus is informative. On this Macatangay writes, ‘God will extend his beneficent care to those living outside the land just as he once took care of Israel beyond the boundaries of the lands as they wandered in the wilderness’ (2011: 159) . Methodologically, Macatangay’s study highlighted how the author of the book of Tobit patterned and overlaid sources in a unique presentation, which is a compositional strategy at play in several other potential intertexts described below.

Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic Heritage

The book of Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomistic theology in general, has long been recognized as having a pervasive influence on the narrative and theology of Tobit. Di Lella’s 1979 study that set the direction for explorations of this avenue of intertextuality continues to serve as a staging point for contemporary surveys on the topic (see, for example, Frölich 2005: 66-67). At least three other scholars have advanced the understanding of how the book of Deuteronomy and Deuteronomistic thought are reconceived and recontextualized in Tobit.

The ideals of Deuteronomistic theology are essential to Bauckham’s understanding of Tobit’s story as a parable that ‘functions in the wider national-historical framework of the book as a model for the past, present and future story of Israel’ (2006: 141). The Deuteronomistic current that runs parallel in Tobit’s plot and Israel’s history concerns chiefly images of just punishment, exile, and restoration. The innovation of Bauckham’s study is his development of this idea to envisage the eventual restoration of Diasporic Jews. For Bauckham, it is significant that Tobit is a Naphtalite, since 2 Kgs 15:29 reports Naphtali as the first tribe to be displaced and Isa. 9:1-2 singles out Naphtali in a prophecy of restoration (2006: 152). In this way, the Deuteronomistic model of sin–punishment–restoration is patterned in such a way so that Tobit cannot only ‘foresee the whole history of exile’ (2006: 152) but the ultimate eschatological restoration from exile, as indicated by Tob. 13:5.

In two studies Kiel both expanded traditional understandings of the manifestation of Deuteronomistic theology in Tobit and critiqued that the complex presentation of retribution in Tobit cannot be accounted for in light of this tradition alone. Based on Weitzman’s proposal (1996) that Tobit’s hymn in Tobit 13 is modeled on Moses’ song in Deuteronomy 32, Kiel (2008) endeavored to show that the character of Tobit is cast on the model of Moses as depicted in Numbers and Deuteronomy. This proposal adds another example of how the author of Tobit cast his leading character in the mold of Israel’s forefathers. Kiel’s larger project (2012), a revision of his doctoral dissertation written at Princeton Theological Seminary, aimed to refine how the idea of retribution (i.e., the classic Deuteronomistic linkage between act and consequence) is worked out in Tobit. The basis of Kiel’s critique is that Deuteronomistic theology does not have a monopoly on retributive thinking in the Second Temple period. By tracing the ideas of retribution and their deep linkages to creation theology in Ben Sira and in some booklets of 1 Enoch, Kiel argues for a complex of retributive theology in Tobit that is developed beyond the Deuteronomistic tradition in conversation with developing wisdom and apocalyptic traditions of the third to second centuries bce. In similar form to his earlier study on the character of Tobit, Kiel concluded that much of the book’s so-called Deuteronomistic flavor is in fact concentrated in Tobit’s literary persona, which cannot be extrapolated to the theological profile of the work as a whole (2012: 59-73).

Weeks (2011) also critiqued the extent to which the book of Tobit may be characterized as Deuteronomistic in its outlook. By virtue of things like the ways in which the book understands nationhood and election with primary recourse to patriarchal descent rather than covenant, Weeks emphasized that, at various points, Tobit is underpinned by notions that are ‘rather un-Deuteronomic’ (2011: 394, 402). In the larger picture, Weeks provided a much-needed series of counterpoints against the common assumption of the uniformity and ubiquity of Deuteronomistic theology in Tobit. If Tobit does evidence the legacy of Deuteronomism, this is but one idea that ‘jostles for space amongst many other concerns’ (Weeks 2011: 403).

Judges

In one of his more recent forays into the layers of intertextuality in Tobit, Di Lella argued Tobit’s indebtedness to the book of Judges, particularly between the Greek versions of the episodes reported in Judg. 13:2-10 and Tob. 12:11-22 (2000: 197-99). He described a series of eight themes and motifs that occur in both works, including: perspectives on healing, angels in disguise, the function of prayers, the reluctant naming of angels, the role of food and eating in human–angelic encounters, ascension, praise at the wonder of the Lord, and prostration or fear caused by divine visitations (2000: 199-205). Di Lella conceded that not all of these proposed correspondences have ‘equal illustrative force’, but concluded that ‘the intertextual patterns as well as the literary borrowing and adaptation by the author (and Greek translator[s]) of the Book of Tobit seem unmistakable’, which refines our understanding of ‘how a later biblical author appropriated ideas and themes from the stories of Israel’s past in order to exploit and reuse them in composing his own edifying narrative for a new generation of believers’ (2000: 205). If Di Lella’s understanding of the similarities between Tobit and the book of Judges are accepted, then his study not only sheds light on the influence of authoritative Scripture at a compositional level but also the potential enhancement of such intertextuality in the transmission history of the Greek versions of the book of Tobit.

Wisdom Traditions in Job and Ben Sira

A number of studies have explored the intertextual dynamics between classical Israelite and Second Temple period wisdom traditions, indicating that once again the author of Tobit has put his own spin on traditional notions.

Macatangay’s study broached aspects of intertextuality in Tobit (for example, see above on Exodus). However, a primary goal of his study was to understand how the book of Tobit assumed, enshrined, and intended to ‘test and verify the claims of the [wisdom] tradition’ (2011: 214). In this, Macatangay established that that the book of Tobit itself, or at least the discourses of Tobit 4 and 12, may be read as a piece of wisdom literature.

The classic questions of divine justice and human suffering in the book of Job find some close parallels in the book of Tobit. Portier-Young preliminarily explored how aspects of Job’s understandings of justice, providence, and divine presence are reshaped in Tobit by a diaspora mentality and apocalyptic worldview (2005: 16-17). Her study is primarily literary- and motif-critical in that it focuses on how imagery, such as blindness, sight, and the hidden presence of God, is put in the service of addressing the condition of exile and the eventual restoration of Israel (2005: 17-21). In addition to analogies between the books of their namesake, continuity and contrasts between the characters of Job and Tobit have also come into sharper relief. As Anderson noted, the prayer in Tobit 3 includes the audacious claim that God is just despite the personal suffering Tobit has endured (à la Job); however, ‘What separates Tobit from Job is his tenacious adherence to his faith. God, he declares, remains righteous and just in his guidance of the world’ (2012: 497-98). While Tobit’s fidelity to the law and Jerusalem cult would have easily provided the opportunity to juxtapose his just characteristics with the idolatrous ways of his northern kin, ‘he does not march down that path’, instead ‘he identifies himself among the guilty’ (Anderson 2012: 498, italics original). Bauckham made a similar recognition, and added that from the perspective of a presumed reader, this distinction from the book of Tobit invites tension: ‘Tobit never questions God’s justice, however much the reader of the book may be tempted to do so’ (2006: 146).

The book of Tobit has also been shown to be in conversation with other, more recent, representatives of the wisdom tradition. Theological similarities between the books of Ben Sira and Tobit have been singled out at intervals. Fitzmyer spoke of Tobit’s ‘marked relationship to Sirach’, as evidenced by some shared themes, such as the understanding of the salvific value of good works (cf. Tob. 4:11; Sir. 29:12; 40:24) and the concern for burial of the dead (cf. Tob. 1:17; 2:4, 7; 4:3-4; Sir. 7:33-34; 30:18; 38:16) (2003: 36). Without diminishing the significance of these potential parallels, Fitzmyer is quick to qualify that ‘though the teaching [of Tobit] is often quite similar, there [are] no verbatim quotations of Sirach’ (2003: 36). Di Lella detected a possible terminological parallel between Tob. 14:10 and Sir. 27:26 (2009: 502). However, as will be shown below, the language of the Tobit passage has a deeper background in the book of Psalms. Frölich offered the most optimistic evaluation on this matter, concluding that on account of the shared interests in charity, burial, and almsgiving, ‘The book of Ben Sira has influenced Tobit’ (2005: 68). In a comparative study, Reiterer (2005) explored the appropriation and perspectives on prophetic traditions advanced in both works. For all of their potential common ground, however, Collins has observed that there are considerable differences between Tobit and Ben Sira, not least with respect to their attitudes toward women/marriage and their perspectives on illness and healing (2005: 35-37). Chrysovergi picked up on this last theme and juxtaposed the rejection of physicians in Tobit with the high regard accorded them in Ben Sira. On her reading, this situation has less to do with intertextuality than with highlighting the plurality of ideas and Jewish identities that existed in the Second Temple period (2011: 54).

One implication that may be drawn from the aforementioned studies is that the author of Tobit was a creative and strategic architect of source material and had a masterful command of the Hebrew Scriptures. At first glance, the characters and books of Tobit and Job have much in common. However, as was the case with Genesis or Deuteronomy above, the book of Tobit is more than just a biblical book once-gently-over. Traditional theological outlooks from Job are developed and adapted to new contexts and perhaps fused with other, more contemporary wisdom traditions, in a unique presentation. This type of activity is characteristic of Tobit’s compositional strategy, and is attested further by the use of two other sources, the books of Psalms and Ahiqar.

The Book of Psalms

The prayer, wisdom discourse, and hymnic units that dot the narrative of Tobit have invited some recent explorations of the degree to which the author of Tobit drew upon the language and imagery of the Psalms. This line of inquiry has also engendered some important methodological issues on our ability to detect potential source material.

Ryan (2005) described a number of instances where rumblings from the Psalms are possibly felt in the book of Tobit. However, the primary contribution of his study was to call attention to the fact that it is difficult to determine if such similarities are to be attributed to allusion, influence, or more generically, to the probability that psalmic language became imbedded in the idiom and style of late biblical literature. For example, Ryan noted that while Tob. 3:2 exhibits similarities with Ps. 118 (119):137, terminological echoes may also be heard in Jer. 12:1 and Est. 14:7, with further similarities to writings that are roughly contemporary with Tobit’s composition, such as Dan. 9:7a and the Words of the Luminaries (4Q504) 2 vi (2005: 31). To further complicate matters, Ryan drew attention to the likelihood that Tobit’s psalmic accent was enhanced in the transmission and reception process, as copyists and translators (consciously or not) introduced motifs and turns of phrase that derive from the Psalms (2005: 42). This recognition, perhaps, adds to what Di Lella noted about the increased affinity between Tobit and Judges in the Greek translations.

Di Lella broached the issue of Tobit and the Psalms from a different angle, by taking Tob. 14:10 as a case study for how scriptural material played a role in domesticating a foreign source into the theological domain of Israelite tradition. Di Lella sought to make the case that ‘Undoubtedly, the Story of Ahiqar is one of the sources of the Book of Tobit. But the author of Tobit had a precise theological purpose that goes far beyond the Story of Ahiqar’ (2009: 498) (for more on the use of this source, see below). This purpose, Di Lella argues, is best understood in light of the book of Psalms. For Di Lella it is significant that Tob. 14:10 mentions Nadab falling into the trap which he had set for Ahiqar, since this motif is also found in a constellation of texts from the Psalms, including Pss. 7:13-17; 9:16-17; 35:7-8; 57:7; and 141:8-10 (cf. also Qoh. 10:8; Sir. 27:26) (2009: 502). By blending ideas and idioms from the book of Psalms with a foreign source, the author of Tobit could successfully accentuate the best qualities of Ahiqar, such as almsgiving and the avoidance of peril, in light of Israelite authoritative traditions with which his readers were familiar (Di Lella 2009: 502-506). In light of Ryan’s findings on the difficulty of detecting psalmic allusions and interference in Tobit, the veracity of Di Lella’s conclusion is up for debate. Nonetheless, his study does open an intriguing methodological vista regarding the appropriation, merging, and patterning of sources.

It seems that the question of intertextuality and the Psalms engenders an intriguing methodological issue regarding possible lost sources and undetectable allusions. The Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls have indicated that the content and shape of the Psalter were still under development in the Second Temple period. Therefore, the author of the book of Tobit’s familiarity with the Psalms cannot be equated with his familiarity with the psalter that would settle in the Masoretic tradition. It is entirely possible that tucked away in the book of Tobit are influences from psalmic literature that are lost on us because a given psalm did not survive antiquity. In some cases, new evidence can shed light on this endangered textual background. For example, it has been noted that some phrasing of Levi’s prayer in the Aramaic Levi Document (4QLevia i 17; Mt. Athos E 2.3 line 10)—another Aramaic work attested alongside Tobit in Qumran cave four—corresponds closely to the so-called ‘Plea for Deliverance’ found in 11QPsalmsa XIX 15, a psalm that was not canonized in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament (see Stone and Greenfield 1993: 262). If the author of the Aramaic Levi Document was utilizing a Psalms collection like the cave 11 Psalms scroll, then the fortuitous recovery of the cave 11 Qumran text potentially points to the source behind the allusion, which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. This is a helpful reminder that explorations of intertextuality stemming from psalm-like literature must have an eye open for potential sources and influences beyond the canonical forms of the book of Psalms.

The Story and Wisdom of Ahiqar

Of all the potential sources that figured in the composition of the book of Tobit, the tale and wisdom of Ahiqar is the most blatant and well-documented use of external material. As was the case in many of the foregoing studies on intertextuality with scriptural sources, recent appraisals on the use of Ahiqar have achieved a clearer sense of the nature and degree of Tobit’s appropriation of this source. Kottsieper questioned how we conceive of the form of Ahiqar that the author of Tobit accessed. Since the proverbs associated with the sage openly establish him as ‘heathen’, one can only imagine it would have been problematic for Jewish readers to find that in his new literary context in the book of Tobit Ahiqar is suddenly presented as a bona fide Israelite. To resolve this perceived tension, Kottsieper concluded that the author of Tobit must have used a form of Ahiqar which did not feature this wisdom material, that is, a form unlike the Elephantine tradition which is a blending of Ahiqar’s proverbs and narrative (2009: 159-61).

In some respects, Niehr explored this avenue of intertextuality from a slightly different direction: rather than describe Tobit’s use of Ahiqar, he considered how Ahiqar was received in the book of Tobit. This perspective allowed for some fresh insight, not least drawing attention to the significance of how this non-Jewish source figures in Tobit’s narrative, alongside of, or even outshining the many elements drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures (Niehr 2009: 72). While few today would debate that Ahiqar ‘would have to be regarded as a source that the author [of Tobit] used’ (Fitzmyer 2003: 37), there is a need to contextualize the line of intertextuality between Tobit and Ahiqar within the broader question of the book of Ahiqar’s own composition, transmission, and reception history.

The Other Side of Intertextuality: Potential Allusions and Reception of Tobit in the New Testament

While greater attention has been paid to the sources and influences lingering behind the book of Tobit, there has been a steadily growing interest in chasing the trajectory of intertextuality beyond Tobit to inquire of its potential impact on later literature. The most optimistic study of this sort was conducted by Skemp, who, based on a marginal reference to Tob. 13:17 alongside Rev. 21:19 in the 27th edition of the Nestle–Aland Greek New Testament, argued that the similarity in imagery and terminology of the architectural descriptions of the eschatological Jerusalem in these texts connotes a clear case of literary borrowing (2005: 47-51). In a discussion on the formative influence of Septuagint Greek idiom on New Testament writings, Law pointed out that Simeon’s declaration that he can die having laid eyes upon the baby Jesus in Luke 2:29 is ‘exactly as Anna had said when she saw Tobit (Tobit 11:9)’ (2013: 98). However, in a study on parallel themes in the book of Tobit and Luke–Acts, Docherty (2013) made an important methodological point that may quench the certitude of potential intertextual linkages between Tobit and the New Testament. He underscored that the book of Tobit itself is heavily shaped by the Hebrew Scriptures, making ‘it difficult to assess the extent to which a New Testament writing is making direct use of Tobit, as any similarities may be due to a common dependence on another scriptural passage, or simply reflect a shared late Second Temple Jewish culture’ (2013: 82). For Docherty, the apparent parallels (e.g., the linking of beatitudes and woes statements; prayer at narrative junctures; mingling first- and third-person narration; descriptive journeys; and utterance of praise at miraculous news) may indicate some level of intertextuality between Tobit and Luke–Acts (2013: 90-92). Yet it is equally apparent that both books ‘imitate biblical narratives, style and language’ and emerge out of ‘broadly similar culture and religious world[s]’ (Docherty 2013: 92). More profitable avenues of intertextuality between Tobit and early Christian literature are perhaps to be found slightly later in Tobit’s reception history, as evidenced by its potential influence on the Shepherd of Hermas, 2 Clement, the Didache, and Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians (Docherty 2013: 93-94). The increased probability for allusion and intertextuality in such writings is no doubt due to Tobit’s reception as Scripture in early Christendom.

Tracing Tobit’s Theological and Literary Threads and Their Insights into Ancient Judaism: Family, Food, and Funerals

A host of topical studies on aspects of the book of Tobit have appeared in recent years. Three areas that have benefited especially from this effort concern the ways in which (1) marriage and family, (2) burial perspectives and practices, and (3) food and eating variously figure in the literary and theological structures of Tobit. A promising trend evidenced in many such studies is the interest in extending insights on these facets of Tobit’s narrative-theological contours into the ancient socio-historical worlds of author and audience. In these ways, the book of Tobit has been increasingly used as a window into both the life and literature of the Second Temple period.

Marriage, Endogamy, and Tribal Ties

The topics of marriage and family have attracted a good deal of scholarly attention since 2000. Miller’s 2007 doctoral dissertation written at the Catholic University of America, a revised version of which saw publication in 2011, comprised a thorough study of Tobit’s perspectives on spousal selection, marital process and relationship, and divine involvement in human unions. More recently, the focus on family and kinship in the 2012/2013 Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook allowed for a consideration of this theme in the book of Tobit from several vantage points (Passaro 2013). (Unfortunately, due to the recent publication of this volume I was unable to include its contributions into the following overview.) In addition to these, the steadily growing bibliography of essays and articles contributes to the chorus that has given greater voice to how marriage and family structures constitute a core element of Tobit’s literary-theological outlook and provides potentially significant insight into Jewish identity formation and maintenance in the mid-Second Temple era. The ensuing survey considers these two perspectives in turn.

In a concise survey article, Dimant (2009b) demonstrated that the tandem plots of Tobit are tightly bound around a cast of characters from a single family tree. Within this broader plot parameter ‘One of the major themes of the book of Tobit is the advocacy of endogamy’ (2009b: 157). At the outset of his overview of the relevant passages to the topic of marriage in Tobit, Hieke likewise concluded that ‘All relevant literary figures [in the book of Tobit] have to do with endogamy’ (2005: 105). Not only is the book of Tobit’s emphasis on endogamy pervasive and woven throughout its plot structures and character sketches, it is enmeshed with a theological dynamic by virtue of its association with Israelite tradition. Collins called attention to how Tob. 6:13 and 7:12 root the ideal of endogamy in the ‘Book of Moses’ (2005: 31). Machiela and Perrin noted that the reverse situation obtains in Ezra 10:3, wherein divorces from foreign women are claimed to be ‘according to the law (כתורה)’ (2014: 123, n. 40). Frölich called attention to another component of Tobit’s claimed divine endorsement of endogamy in Tob. 6:18, which specifies that Tobias and Sarai’s union is, literally, a match made in heaven (2005: 62). Miller gave greater attention to this detail, compellingly demonstrating that while the God of Israel instituted marriage and dabbled in guiding some patriarchal unions, ‘God’s involvement in their [Tobiah and Sarah’s] marriage is more explicit and more detailed … This divine intervention does not reveal that all marriages are “made in heaven” but constitutes a manifestation of Gods providential care for his people’, particularly in the Diaspora (2011: 139). Ego noted that the force of Tobit’s divine sanction for proper marital practice is accentuated by the fact that only two things are associated with Mosaic Torah in the book: endogamous marriage and fidelity to Jerusalem as the sole cultic center (2005: 51). It has long been recognized that, while the Pentateuch supports endogamy in spirit, it does not go as far as formally legislating the practice (see Cohen 1983; Hayes 1999). Given this situation, it is conceivable that the aforementioned strategies for advancing endogamy indicate that the author of Tobit participated in a Mosaic discourse of halakhic interpretation and extension.

It is possible that Tobit’s emphasis on marriage and family provides glimpses into the socio-historical world of ancient Judaism. In a broad sense, Collins determined that ‘The primary purposes of endogamy are to maintain close ties within the kinship group and to ensure that inheritances do not pass outside of the tribe’ (2005: 31). This observation exhibits some semblance to the three functions of endogamy described by Hieke. He proposed that endogamy (1) protects identity, (2) safeguards property and finances, and (3) emphasizes God’s providence and commitment to work out a long-reaching plan within a single family line (Hieke 2005: 119-20). While it is widely acknowledged that endogamy has implications for identity, there is little agreement regarding what social location this interest connotes. A general trend associates Tobit’s concern for marriage and family at a tribal level with a Diaspora context. Ego proposed that endogamy functioned to ‘prevent assimilation’ and, as such, was one indicator that the book of Tobit aimed to achieve ‘stronger cohesion within the group of exiled Israelites’ and to define ‘a separation line between them and other nations’ in a Diasporic situation (2005: 50, 46). Similarly, Frölich pinpointed that ‘In the diaspora, endogamy serves to preserve religious and ethnic identity, keeping together the family estate’ (2005: 62-63). Dimant concluded that the practice of endogamy was relevant ‘both in the Land of Israel and abroad’ in Second Temple times; however, ‘the notion that all social connections of diaspora Jews should remain within the family and clan, and that only in this way piety may be maintained, seems to be particular to the author of the book of Tobit’ (2009b: 162). Pitkänen (2006) drew an analogous conclusion by exploring how Tobit’s understandings of identity and ethnicity are more entrenched and rigid than the models in the book of Genesis. On this reading ‘The book of Tobit attests the views of a representative of a minority group which is living scattered among peoples of a big empire and wish to maintain their identity’ (2006: 109).

To temper the assumption of a Diasporic context, Collins underscored that ‘The concern to avoid intermarriage was undoubtedly highly relevant in the Diaspora, but intermarriage was also a controversial issue in Judah, as can be seen from the books of Ezra and Jubilees. Concern for marriage within one’s own tribe, however, in no way implies a Diaspora situation, but rather implies that the alternative is marriage with a woman from another Israelite tribe’ (2005: 31). While not giving due consideration to the book of Tobit, the collection of studies in a recent thematic volume entitled Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period (Frevel 2011) sufficiently established this point by its emphasis on ancient literatures with a focus on the Judaean context. To add to this picture, Machiela and Perrin outlined the overarching concern for proper marital practices in a cluster of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, including Tobit (2014: 121-26), which as a group unlikely derive from Diaspora contexts or social locations too far afield from Jerusalem.

In view of these advancements, recent research has achieved a deeper and more detailed understanding of the strategies in which Tobit’s endogamous rhetoric is deployed at literary and theological levels. There has also been an enhanced appreciation and interest in triangulating this message with the social world of the earliest author and his imagined readers. However, as was seen in the discussion on Tobit’s provenance above, it is possible to interpret this component of the book’s outlook in multiple ways.

Burying the Dead: Task and Tradition

Along with the emphases on marriage and charity, the stress placed on appropriate burial of the dead is at the core of Tobit’s ethical admonishments. Not unlike the perspective on endogamy offered by Hieke, Bolyki’s assessment of burial in Tobit acknowledged its theological and social implications, which extend in ‘three directions’: (1) ‘obedience to God’, (2) ‘piety towards outsiders and setting an example and assuming solidarity’, and (3) ‘strengthening the internal cohesion of the community towards the members of their people’ (2005: 100). Dávid (2011) offered a different outlook on this topic by attempting to use Tobit’s attitudes on death and burial to illumine the enigmatic cemetery formations near the Qumran settlement. Dávid is careful not to overstate the results of such a collaboration of archaeological and literary evidence, but simply emphasizes that the peculiarity of the burial situation at Qumran invites searching for parallels in written sources (2011: 491, 498). Tobit is a good candidate for such a venture because death ‘is not merely one motif among others in the story, but a thread running through the entire book’, and it is equally noteworthy that ‘the fact that the community [at Qumran] read the book [of Tobit] has its own significance’ (2011: 492). In the end, the issue of Qumran archaeology figured minimally in Dávid’s study, as her focus fell primarily on the perspectives on corpse impurity in Tobit and some other Qumran texts, such as the Temple Scroll and Ritual of Purification A (2011: 492-98). While these comparisons cast little light on funerary and internment practice at Khirbet Qumran, Dávid’s study makes a helpful contribution to the ongoing task of situating the book of Tobit among the wider Qumran literary collection.

Home Cooking and Diaspora Diets

One area that has received virtually no attention in past research but has come to the fore in twenty-first-century Tobit research is the role and significance of food in Tobit’s narrative framework. A growing collection of studies in recent years have opened up this line of inquiry.

Jacobs observed that food and eating figure in Tobit’s narrative in a deceptively ordinary manner, but upon closer inspection, this ever-present prop is crucial to plot advancement, scene settings, symbolism, and characterization, to such an extent that were it expunged from the book of Tobit, the work would be virtually unintelligible (2005: 126-32). It could be said that food plays ‘a strong supporting role throughout Tobit by drawing attention to themes other than itself’ (2005: 137). The chain of events sparked by the Shavuot meal illustrate this point well, which Jacobs summarized as follows:

A festive dinner launches a chain of events that results in one of two main crises in the story that led to Raphael’s descent. Had Tobit not been presented with a lavish Shavuot meal (2:1), he would not have wished to invite a guest (2:2). Had he not sent for a guest, a corpse would not have been found (2:3). Burying the corpse in turn contaminates him, and so forces him to sleep outdoors (2:9), exposing his eyes to the bird feces (also a by-product of eating) that blind him. Later on in the story, the appearance of a certain large fish sets off another chain of events. Had the fish not tried to consume Tobiah’s foot (6:3) its marvelous (potentially edible) organs, used both against demons and blindness, would not have been collected (6:5) to cure Sarah (8:3) and Tobit (11:11-13). (2005: 126-27)

A more complete analysis and commentary on the some three dozen references to food in Tobit may be found in Jacobs’s as yet unpublished doctoral dissertation completed at Durham University in 2007.

MacDonald’s exploration of this topic (2006) adopted a broader field of view by considering the literary presentations and functions of food in ancient Jewish Diaspora novellas, including Esther, Daniel, Judith, and Tobit. His study commenced with the important methodological critique that past research in this area has stalled at the question of religious dietary halakhah without reflecting on broader issues of the function of food in narratives, not least concerning the common juxtaposed attitudes toward food in diaspora and court tales (2006: 166-67). In broad strokes, MacDonald averred that the foreign nobility in the novellas exhibit fascination with food in contrast to the Jewish attitude that is characterized by moderation (2006: 169-74). In similar form to Jacobs, MacDonald observed the presence of food at critical narrative junctures and moments that contribute to characterization (2006: 173-74).

In the most recent study on this topic, Efthimiadis-Keith (2013) illustrates how the motif of food/eating is integrally related to death in the narrative of Tobit. Efthimiadis-Keith provided a brief commentary on 12 instances in which food and death are paired in order to draw the reader into the narrative by heightened suspense, irony, surprise, and developments/shifts in characterizations (2013: 572). In this study, Efthimiadis-Keith underscores the need for both in-depth consideration of individual dynamics of Tobit’s literary profile and collaborative analyses of pairs or clusters of features.

Conclusion: The Journey So Far and Some Paths Ahead

Research on the book of Tobit is alive and well in the early twenty-first century. At one time an oft-overlooked piece of ‘apocryphal’ literature, over the past few decades Tobit has emerged as an integral volume in the literary heritage of ancient Judaism and Christianity. This survey of research and resources from 2000-2014 indicates that Tobit has been considered from a number of angles but there are still many facets of the book that could benefit from continued study. Advancements in the field of Tobit studies are the result of a collective effort of a broad diversity of scholars exploring equally diverse topics. For a moment, I will step out of this group and reflect on where we have been and offer some glimpses of areas of research that may lie ahead. Judging from recent trends, there are at least four roads of Tobit research that are likely to be traveled in this next phase of studies.

The quest for Tobit’s textual origins and explanations of its earliest transmission history. Scholars working on the book of Tobit are in the fortuitous position of having a library of ancient witnesses to work with in a number of up-to-date and reliable editions. The question of how all of these ancient texts relate, however, has not been comprehensively answered. Working toward such an answer will involve developing advanced text-critical tools that enable the comparison of clusters or combinations of witnesses. Such a project will allow for the increased awareness of the peculiarities of individual texts and push back against the rigid approach of describing early witnesses in light of later developed recensions. At least three manuscript families could benefit from such close textual comparison: the diversity of Latin witnesses, the spectrum of Greek texts that are still predominantly described generically by their comparative length, and the Aramaic and Hebrew fragments from Qumran cave four. With a host of texts now available, it is time to increase the lens of magnification to allow for closer examination of continuities and contrasts that exist in the minutiae of all of these witnesses. Some of this work has begun to take place in text editions and commentaries. The next step will involve transposing and expanding these insights into textual apparatuses and other text-critical tools that will allow for a global mapping of Tobit’s development.

Deciphering the double helix of Tobit’s transmission and interpretative history. A potential outcome of the above recommendation is that becoming more attuned to Tobit’s textual history will allow for an increased recognition that scribes and translators constitute the earliest participants in Tobit’s interpretation. Whether it be slight changes perceptible among the Qumran witnesses, shades of differences between them and the Greek texts, or clearer instances of narrative and stylistic reshaping among the Greek and Latin texts, these materials are rich in data for detecting how from an early time the book of Tobit was not merely copied, but interpreted.

A clearer agenda of reception history that transcends disciplines. To date, the reception history of the book of Tobit has not developed far beyond preliminary studies focused largely on manuscript traditions. This dearth of study holds exciting prospects for exploring how the book of Tobit was read in ancient Judaism, received and transmitted as Christian Scripture via the Septuagint and Vetus Latina/Vulgate, and enjoyed a sustained readership in most pockets of Christendom until the Protestant Reformation and Council of Trent, which set Tobit on two different trajectories in Western Christianity. For this reason, the study of Tobit’s reception might be beneficially considered as part of a larger story, that of the tumultuous history of the collection of the Apocrypha. Added to this are other avenues of Tobit’s reception. One such open frontier in art history concerns how the book of Tobit was depicted in the medieval and early modern periods. Whether it is the study of the works of Rembrandt, arguably the most prolific painter and etcher of scenes from Tobit, or the less voluminous but equally breathtaking images painted by the Dutch artist Jan Steen or Italian painter and sculptor Andrea Verrocchio, these artistic representations of the book of Tobit are an important component of Tobit’s yet untold biography.

Continued study of the subtleties of Tobit’s patterning of sources, traditions, and influences. The above survey establishes that the author of Tobit is to be considered a clever and strategic handler of sources and traditional materials. One area of study that has emerged over the last period of research and has good prospects for future development is the way in which the author of Tobit set his foundation in traditional materials yet developed these in new directions, melded them with other ideas and sources, and ultimately created a literary product that has the heartbeat of Israelite Scripture in a more contemporary tale. Explorations of this evolved intertextuality in the book of Tobit have the potential of inviting new conversation partners that have yet to be considered as intertexts as well as unlocking new insights into what type of imagined readerships the book of Tobit could have served in ancient Judaism.

Footnotes

Funding

This article was made possible through a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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