TOBIT, BOOK OF
448
TOBIT, BOOK OF
more fluent in style, as well as more explicit in its ren- clerini^.s, and it is to be rcgrctteil that it lias survived as a tVaginent, containing only i, I-vi, l'2(/>ihl. Lot. ii,70()). I here also existed another Latin version, as is evident from the quotations of this book contained in the iSpec- uluiii of Augustine, which Angelo Mai has published (^Spicikf/iiim Riiinnnorum, ix, "2 1-23). As to the Vulgate Latin version, Jerome tells us. as we have seen, that lie made it in oni^ day from the Syro-Chaldaic. It differs very materially from the (Jreek, and is evidently derived from a ditferent form which this traditional story as- sumed in a different |)art of the country. The treat- ment of the text in this recension is very arbitrary, as might be expected from the above account which Je- rome gives of the mode in which it was made; and it is of very little critical value, for it is impossible to dis- tinguish accurately the different elements which are in- corporated in it. It is evident that in this process Je- rome made some use of the Old Latin version, which he follows almost verbally in a few places: iii, 3-6; iv, 6,7, 11, 23, etc. ; but the greater part of the version seems to be an independent work. On the whole, it is more con- cise than the Old Latin; but it contains interpolations and changes, many of which mark tlic asceticism of a late age: ii, 12-14 (parallel with Jol)); iii, 17-23 (ex- pansion of iii, 14); vi. 17 sq. (expansion of vi, 18); ix, 11, 12; xii, 13 ("et quia acceptus eras Deo, necesse fuit ut tentatio probaret te").
The Syriac version is made from the two different recensions of the Greek ; i, 1-vii, 9 being a translation of the common Greek text of the Sept., while vii, 10, etc., is from a text represented by the above-named three MSS. (44, 106, 107) of Holmes and Parsons, ac- cording to the marginal annotations in Usher's MS.
Neubauer has lately discovered a Chaldee version among the MSS. of the Bodleian Library, which may prove to be a copy of that to which Jerome refers as the basis of his version.
There are four Hebrew versions of this book, the one first published in Constantinople, l.ol7; then with a Latin translation by l\iul Fagius, and adopted in Wal- ton's Poli/iilot (Loud. 1657), vol. iv. It is a free trans- lation of the common Greek text, made by a learned Jew in the r2th century. The second is that first pub- lished with a Latin translation by Sebastian Minister (Basle, 1542; then again in 1.549,"l556, 1563), and has also been inserted in Walton's Pohfjlot. This Hebrew version is more in harmony with tiie Vetus Latiiui ; and the author of it, wiio was a Jew, is supposed to have flourished in the 5th century. The thinl Hebrew ver- sion was made from the common (ireek text by J. S. Friinkel (Leips. 1830) ; and the fourth is by J. Siebcn- berger— it was published in Warsaw, 1840, with a Ju- daio-German translation, a Hebrew commentary, and an elaborate Hebrew introduction.
As to the versions of the Reformation, Luther made his translation from the Vulgate; the Swiss-Zurich Bi- ble (1531) is also from the Vulgate. Coverdale (1535), as usual, followed the Zurich version [see Covkrdai-e] ; and he again was followed by Matthew's Bible (1537). Lord Cromwell's Bible (1539), Cranmer's Bible (1540), and the Bislio|)s' Bible (1568). The Genevan version (1560) is the first made from the Greek, and our present A. V. (1611), as in most cases, followed the Genevan ver- sion, though tliis was interdicted by James I.
3. The first complete edition of the book was by Ilgen {Die Gexch. Tubi's . . . mit . . . einer Einleit. versehen [Jen. 1800]), which, in spite of serious defects due to the period at which it was published, contains the most full discussion of the contents. The edition of Fritzsche {Exeget. Ilamlb. [Leips. 1853], vol. ii) is concise and scholarlike, but leaves some points without illustration. In England the book, like the rest of the Apocrypha, seems to have fallen into neglect.
V. Author. l>,ite, aiid Place of Composition.— As xii, 20 tells us that Raphael, before his disappearance, com- manded Tobit and his son Tobias to record the events
of their lives; and, moreover, since Tobit, in the first three chapters, speaks in the first person, while (ch. xiii) his prayer is introduced by the statement Kai Wo- fi'iT typa\pt irpo(stv\))v tig ayaWicKTiv K(ti eIttw ; the Church universal, up to the time of the Reformation, believed that Tobit himself wrote this book (B.C. cir. 600) as far as ch. xiv; that xiv, 1-11 was written by his son Toliias; and that xii, 12-15 was added by the editor of this document immediately after the death of Tobias, 'i'his opinion is shared by bishop tiray, I'ri- deaux, and others, who modify it by sulmiitting iliat it was compiled from tlie memoirs of Tobit ami Tobias; while Ilgen maintains that i, 1-iii, 7; xiii, 1-8, were written by Tobit in Assyria, B.C. 689; iii, 8-xii, 2-22; xiv, 1-15, were written in Palestine, B.C. cir. 280; and that from these two Hebrew documents the Chaldee ver- sion was made B.(J. cir. 120, which Jerome translated into Latin. Modern critics, however, conclude, from the whole complexion of the book, its angelology, theology, etc., that it is a post-Babylonian production, and that it was written by a Palestinian Jew, But these critics differ very materially about the (irecise date when the book Avas compiled, as will be seen from the following table :