parts of the post-Hebrew Bible period is sketchy because of inadequate
source material, but he offers extensive accounts from the Hasmonean pe-
riod to the mid-first centuryc.e.and is often the only source of informa-
tion about these times.Stories
A number of narrative works that do not appear to be historical in intent
express, often in highly entertaining ways, the theological and ethical views
of the authors.
The book of Tobit may have been written in Israel, although it is not
impossible that it comes from somewhere in the eastern Diaspora. It was
composed in Aramaic. Copies of it have been found in Qumran Cave 4
(4Q196-199 in Aramaic [see fig. 40], 4Q200 in Hebrew). The work tells the
parallel stories of two pious Jews whose lives had become tragedies, al-
though they maintained their religious fidelity in dire circumstances, and
who were delivered through the agency of the angel Raphael. The book
commends pious deeds by Diaspora Jews such as almsgiving, care for fel-
low Jews, praise of God, prayer, and endogamy.
The book of Judith was written in Hebrew, although it is available only
in a Greek translation. The author paints a confusing situation blending
Babylonian, Persian, and perhaps other times, but its aim is to describe the
deliverance God gave to his beleaguered people through the hand of a
woman named Judith, whose extraordinary piety and remarkable bravery
and cleverness brought about victory for the Jews in the land when the
great general Holophernes and his massive army wished to destroy them.
The book also presents an interesting example of a proselyte in the form of
Achior the Ammonite.Legal Texts
From early in the Second Temple period there is little evidence of legal lit-
erature in the sense of laws such as those in the Pentateuch. Those books
may have reached their final form early in the period, but from the centu-
ries that followed no such texts are attested until the literature found at
Qumran. Among the scrolls are different sorts of works that deal with and
expound the law of Moses; these are in addition to the numerous copies of87Judaism in the Land of IsraelEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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