Book of Tobit - Date of composition

The Book of Tobit (or Book of Tobias in older Catholic Bibles) is a book of scripture that is part of the Catholic and Orthodox biblical canon, pronounced canonical by the Council of Carthage of 397 and confirmed for Roman Catholics by the Council of Trent (1546). Tobit is regarded by Protestants as apocryphal. It has never been considered an integral part of the Tanach, the Hebrew Old Testament, but Aramaic and Hebrew fragments of the book were discovered in Cave IV at Qumran in 1955. These fragments are generally in ag ...

Including:

• Book of Tobit - Narrative
• Book of Tobit - Significance
• Book of Tobit - Date of composition
• Book of Tobit - External references

Read more here: » Book of Tobit: Encyclopedia - Book of Tobit

The book was originally written in Aramaic, but the original was lost, so that the surviving Greek translation is considered the standard text of the work. The text exists in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Judæo-Aramaic manuscripts, besides two late Hebrew translations of the Middle Ages. It appears that Jerome's version for the Vulgate was made from an Aramaic text available to him. It is generally believed that the book was written in the second century BC, on the basis of the scrupulous attention to ritual details and the stress laid upon giving alms, but there is no Messianic ...

See also:

Book of Tobit, Book of Tobit - Narrative, Book of Tobit - Significance, Book of Tobit - Date of composition, Book of Tobit - External references

Read more here: » Book of Tobit: Encyclopedia II - Book of Tobit - Date of composition

The book tells the story of a righteous Jew of the Tribe of Naphtali named Tobit living in Nineveh after the deportation of the northern tribes of Israel to Assyria in 721 BC under Shalmaneser V. (The first two and a half chapters are written in the first person.) He was particularly noted for his diligence in attempting to provide proper burials for fallen Jews who had been slain by Sennacherib, for which the king seized all his property and exiled him. After Sennacherib's death, he was allowed to return to Nineveh, but again buried ...

See also:

Book of Tobit, Book of Tobit - Narrative, Book of Tobit - Significance, Book of Tobit - Date of composition, Book of Tobit - External references

Read more here: » Book of Tobit: Encyclopedia II - Book of Tobit - Narrative

Catholics list the book of Tobit among the "historical books" of the Bible, but most scholars regard it more as a religious novel with certain historical elements. Many of the historical details in the book contradict what is known about the history of the period from extra-Biblical sources. In the past, Catholic Bible scholars have provided a variety of ways for explaining these apparent discrepancies. The book is also closely related to Jewish wisdom literature. Nowhere is this clearer than in Tobit's instructions to Tobias before h ...

See also:

Book of Tobit, Book of Tobit - Narrative, Book of Tobit - Significance, Book of Tobit - Date of composition, Book of Tobit - External references

Read more here: » Book of Tobit: Encyclopedia II - Book of Tobit - Significance