Changes

The picture of religious life given in Tobit (especially the devotion to ritual details) indicates a date post-Ezra for the book. The special significance attached to almsgiving (4:10; 12:8, 9) is identical with the idea in Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 3:30 (compare also Proverbs 10:2), and the injunction in 4:17, "''Pour out thy bread on the burial of the just, but give nothing to the wicked''", is given repeated import in Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 12:4-5. The prediction in 14:5, "''the house of God will be rebuilt there with a glorious building for all generations forever''", implies a period after the building of the Second Temple, and, apparently, just before the commencement of Herod's Temple. The prominence given to the duty of burying the outcast slain (the survival of a very ancient conception) seems to point to a time when the Jews were slaughtered by foreign enemies, for example, by Antiochus or Hadrian. The necessity of marrying within the kin, endogamy, was recognized during a very long period in Jewish history and does not define the date precisely. Polycarp's saying "Almsgiving delivers from death," ("Ad Phil. 10", ''To the Philippians'' 10), does not prove that he was acquainted with Tobit, since this may have been his reading or understanding of Proverbs 10:2 . There is no Messianic hope expressed in the book. The more probable view is that it was composed between 200 and 50 B.C. If the original language was Hebrew, the place was Palestine; if it was Greek, it was Egypt; but this point, too, must be left undecided.

The picture of religious life given in Tobit (especially the devotion to ritual details) indicates a date post-Ezra for the book. The special significance attached to almsgiving (4:10; 12:8, 9) is identical with the idea in Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 3:30 (compare also Proverbs 10:2), and the injunction in 4:17, "''Pour out thy bread on the burial of the just, but give nothing to the wicked''", is given repeated import in Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 12:4-5. The prediction in 14:5, "''the house of God will be rebuilt there with a glorious building for all generations forever''", implies a period after the building of the Second Temple, and, apparently, just before the commencement of Herod's Temple. The prominence given to the duty of burying the outcast slain (the survival of a very ancient conception) seems to point to a time when the Jews were slaughtered by foreign enemies, for example, by Antiochus or Hadrian. The necessity of marrying within the kin, endogamy, was recognized during a very long period in Jewish history and does not define the date precisely. Polycarp's saying "Almsgiving delivers from death," ("Ad Phil. 10", ''To the Philippians'' 10), does not prove that he was acquainted with Tobit, since this may have been his reading or understanding of Proverbs 10:2 . There is no Messianic hope expressed in the book. The more probable view is that it was composed between 200 and 50 B.C. If the original language was Hebrew, the place was Palestine; if it was Greek, it was Egypt; but this point, too, must be left undecided.

Most scholars agree that Tobit was written some time around the year 200 B.C. For example, J.A. Fitzmyer,<ref>J.A. Fitzmyer, Tobit. ''Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature''), Berlin-New York 2003, 51</ref> G. Toloni.<ref>G. Toloni, ''L’originale del libro di Tobia''. ''Studio filologico-linguistico'', Madrid 2004, 153-157.</ref> Fitzmyer uses the five Qumran fragments of Tobit (4QTob 196-200, also numbered 4QTob a-e) to determine the ''terminus ad quem'' (the final limiting point in time) for the book, which he sets at the first century B.C. The ''terminus a quo'' (the first point in time) for the book would be the fourth century B.C., due to the book’s reference to the prophets as canonical (Tobit 14:4), the use of the phrase "book of Moses" or "law of Moses" in Tobit 6:13; 7:11-13 (echoing the late post-exilic passages of 2 Chronicles 23:18; 25:4; 30:16), and the lack of a reference to the Antiochan persecution and Maccabean revolt.<ref>"lack of reference to the Antiochan persecution and Maccabean revolt."<br/>—An 8th century setting in the Book of Tobit would normally preclude any anachronistic literary reference by the writer to events of the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.. For example, ''Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ'', a novel by General Lew Wallace, published by Harper & Brothers on November 12, 1880, is set in A.D. 1st century Palestine, but was written towards the end of the 19th-century by a retired Civil War general, and he makes no reference to the oppression of the Jews in Palestine by the Turkish Ottoman Empire preceding the controversial land purchases there in the beginning of 1880 (see [http://wordfromjerusalem.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/the-case-for-israel-appendix2.pdf Land Ownership in Palestine, 1880-1948 by Moshe Aumann] ). It is absurd and naive to expect the author and/or editor(s) of the Book of Tobit, a story set in the 8th century B.C., to mention the oppression by Antiochus and the Maccabean revolt, regardless of when it was written.</ref> On the other hand, C. Moore <ref>C. Moore ''Tobit: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary'', Anchor Yale Bible Commentary, Vol. 40A, Garden City 1996, 40-41.</ref> claims that many of these reasons constitute nothing more than an argument from silence. But Moore also admits that the most likely dating for the book is somewhere between the 4th and 2nd centuries B.C.<ref>ARTICOLI RB 2-2009_129-244_I bozza.qxd 25-08-2009 10:09 Pagina 129.</ref>   

Most scholars agree that Tobit was written some time around the year 200 B.C. For example, J.A. Fitzmyer,<ref>J.A. Fitzmyer, Tobit. ''Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature'', Berlin-New York 2003, 51</ref> G. Toloni.<ref>G. Toloni, ''L’originale del libro di Tobia''. ''Studio filologico-linguistico'', Madrid 2004, 153-157.</ref> Fitzmyer uses the five Qumran fragments of Tobit (4QTob 196-200, also numbered 4QTob a-e) to determine the ''terminus ad quem'' (the final limiting point in time) for the book, which he sets at the first century B.C. The ''terminus a quo'' (the first point in time) for the book would be the fourth century B.C., due to the book’s reference to the prophets as canonical (Tobit 14:4), the use of the phrase "book of Moses" or "law of Moses" in Tobit 6:13; 7:11-13 (echoing the late post-exilic passages of 2 Chronicles 23:18; 25:4; 30:16), and the lack of a reference to the Antiochan persecution and Maccabean revolt.<ref>"lack of reference to the Antiochan persecution and Maccabean revolt."<br/>—An 8th century setting in the Book of Tobit would normally preclude any anachronistic literary reference by the writer to events of the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.. For example, ''Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ'', a novel by General Lew Wallace, published by Harper & Brothers on November 12, 1880, is set in A.D. 1st century Palestine, but was written towards the end of the 19th-century by a retired Civil War general, and he makes no reference to the oppression of the Jews in Palestine by the Turkish Ottoman Empire preceding the controversial land purchases there in the beginning of 1880 (see [http://wordfromjerusalem.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/the-case-for-israel-appendix2.pdf Land Ownership in Palestine, 1880-1948 by Moshe Aumann] ). It is absurd and naive to expect the author and/or editor(s) of the Book of Tobit, a story set in the 8th century B.C., to mention the oppression by Antiochus and the Maccabean revolt, regardless of when it was written.</ref> On the other hand, C. Moore <ref>C. Moore ''Tobit: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary'', Anchor Yale Bible Commentary, Vol. 40A, Garden City 1996, 40-41.</ref> claims that many of these reasons constitute nothing more than an argument from silence. But Moore also admits that the most likely dating for the book is somewhere between the 4th and 2nd centuries B.C.<ref>ARTICOLI RB 2-2009_129-244_I bozza.qxd 25-08-2009 10:09 Pagina 129.</ref>   

==The message==

==The message==