The Book of Daniel Esther in Protestant ones.) Tobit is set in the Assyrian Empire of the eighth
to seventh century. The hero is introduced as one who ‘‘in the days of Shal-
maneser king of the Assyrian empire was carried away captive out of Thisbe
which is on the right hand of Kedesh Naphtali in Upper Galilee.’’ Thence-
forward he lived in Nineveh, in the reigns of Shalmaneser (V), Sennacherib,
and Esarhaddon (the sequence is historical, if incomplete, the respective dates
being –, –, and –..). The full text of Tobit survives
only in Greek, but it is of crucial importance that fragments in Aramaic,
with one in Hebrew, have been found in Qumran.^12 The work is thus almost
certainly a Semitic-language composition of the early Hellenistic period.
Judith, by contrast, confuses the Assyrian and Babylonian empires: ‘‘It was
in the twelfth year of Nebuchadnezzar who reigned over the Assyrians in the
great city of Nineveh.’’ The historical Nebuchadnezzar was of course a Baby-
lonian king (see below). There is no trace of the (probable) Semitic original
of the Greek text of Judith; and only general arguments from the religious
and nationalistic tone of the story of Judith and Holofernes might perhaps
suggest that itcouldbelong in the Maccabean period.^13
As for Esther, if we ignore an inept introductory paragraph added to the
Greek version, which confuses the Persian and Babylonian empires (as does
indeed a reference to Esther’s father in :–), it is firmly set in the Per-
sian Empire, in the reign of a king ’ḤŠWRWŠ (Ahasuerus-Artaxerxes), who
ruled from Susa over an empire which stretched from India to Kush, and
who had an army of Persians and Medes (ḤYL PRS WMDY). The whole
story of Esther is retold in detail by Josephus in theAntiquities, where it is
set in the fifth century.^14 As a literary work, it was certainly in existence by
the second century..at the latest. A note at the end of the Greek version
claims that one Dositheos had ‘‘brought’’ the letter concerning Purim (de-
scribed in :–) in the fourth year of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, after it had
been translated by Lysimachus, a Jerusalemite. If this reference is authentic,
and not merely a piece of pseudo-historical colouring, the date referred to
Septuaginta als ‘christliche Schriftensammlung’: Ihre Vorgeschichte und das Problem ihres
Kanons,’’ in M. Hengel and A. M. Schwemer, eds.,Die Septuaginta zwischen Judentum und
Christentum(), –.
. For Tobit, see R. H. Charles,ApocryphaandPseudepigraphaoftheOldTestamentI (),
–; P. Deselaers,DasBuchTobit(); Schürer, Vermes, and Millar,HistoryIII., –.
For Qumran fragments Q–, see now J. A. Fitzmyer,QumranCave,XIV:Parabiblical
Texts, part , DJD XIX (), –.
. See Charles (n. ), –; Eissfeldt,The Old Testament, –; Schürer, Vermes,
and Millar,HistoryIII., –.
. Josephus,Ant. , –.