TOBIT - the fictional prophet who never existed. I have never seen who people say with authority actually wrote this fake book. Was it supposed to be Tobit? If he is a story character and never even existed? Writing a book of the bible some would argue makes you a prophet.

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The Book of Tobit (/ˈtoʊbɪt/)[a] is a book of scripture that is part of the Catholic and Orthodox biblical canons. It was pronounced canonical by the Council of Rome (382 AD) the Council of Hippo (in 393), the Councils of Carthage of 397 and 417, and the Council of Florence (in 1442), and confirmed in the Counter-Reformation by the Council of Trent (1546). It is not found in Protestant or Jewish biblical canons.

It is part of the canon of both the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Roman Catholics often refer to it as deuterocanonical.[8]

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Why is Athanasius (367 AD) a saint, when he mentioned that certain other books, including the book of Tobit, while not being part of the Canon, "were appointed by the Fathers to be read".[11] The reason is probably they say there was no canon understood by anyone at the time.

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Protestants probably usually say :

That the canon of scripture was known by the early church, as they were in the Spirit, but the Catholics and Orthodox ridiculously say that the canon of scripture was unknown to mankind until their bishops hundreds of years after the resurrection of Jesus received divine Revelation, however these bishops were in reality witches and wizards who chose the wrong books and corrupted the text. 

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They changed their canon of scripture: by adding the new longer version of Tobit found in the Alexandrian Text, the Orthodox and Catholics have in effect changed their canon/

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Future change in their canon? - the Catholic and Orthodox Book of Jeremiah is shorter than that of Protestants, who use the Jewish ms not the LXX. (it would be very interesting to study the missing verses to see if anything in them contradicts their beliefs and so was removed?). Will they ever add these verses they missed out? Funny how they add verses to Tobit, but refuse to use the Masoretic Text to add to Jeremiah what is missing.

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Tobit - The prophet the Jews don't even know they had. My view is that in former days the Catholics and Orthodox probably said the contents of Tobit were real events, as they deliberately kept the public so uneducated. Now the story is so inane they say its like an inspired parable or story. But an important question is "Is Tobit a prophet that a story was made up about, or an entirely fictional prophet"?

Sinaiticus contained a longer and older Greek edition of Tobit, which is used in modern translations. Five fragments of Tobit were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls: one in Hebrew, four in Aramaic. The fragments confirm the Sinaiticus edition and suggest an Aramaic original.

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In the two Greek versions, the first two and a half chapters are written in the first person; in the Vulgate version, they are written in the third person.

 

The Story:

 

A main part of the story is about Tobias, the son of the nonexistent Tobit, who journeys to Media with his dog and the Angel Raphael (Azariah) in disguise.

 

Preposterous :
Tobit is made blind by bird droppings in his eyes.

(the blindness strains Tobits marriage and he wants to die)

wildly Idiotic :
Sarah has been married seven times but a demon killed each of her husbands before the marriage could be consummated (3:8).

 

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Be careful - Asmodeus

The Persian demon of lust, Asmodeus ("the worst of demons"), abducts and kills every man Sarah marries on their wedding night before the marriage can be consummated. Not only is this preposterous dialogue, be very careful accepting names of demons not found in real scripture "by tradition" as this leads to lies like "by tradition Onesimus and Stachys became early bishops" and thus the apostolic line of descent is built out of old wives tales and lies. The old wives tale they had Catholic and Orthodox doctrine is then added (though Catholic and Orthodox doctrine contradict over 100 times).

trite :
The angel Raphael is disguised as an Israelite named Azariah.

hilarious :
Raphael convinces Tobiah to marry Sarah, despite her track record of dead husbands.

 

historical blunder?

Other scholars have postulated that Tobit was excluded from the Jewish Scriptures for a halakhic reason because Raguel, the bride's father, wrote the marriage document discussed in Tobit 7:13, instead of the bridegroom, as required by Jewish rabbinical law.[8]

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Voodoo :

Along the way, while washing his feet in the river Tigris, a fish tries to swallow Tobiah's foot. By the angel's order, he captures it and removes its heart, liver and gall bladder.

Tobiah uses these parts of the fish to ward off the murderous demon (voodoo) and he survives the wedding night (8:2).

Upon arriving in Media, Raphael tells Tobias of the beautiful Sarah, whom Tobias has the right to marry because he is her cousin and closest relative (now seen as very unwise to marry cousin). The angel instructs the young man to burn the fish's liver and heart to drive away the demon when he attacks on the wedding night.[20] The two marry, and the fumes of the burning organs drive the demon to Upper Egypt, where Raphael follows and binds him. 

This voodoo proves yet again the Catholics and Orthodox are witches and wizards.

never knew angels were into money :
Since the feast prevents him from leaving, Tobias sends Raphael to recover his father's money

Angelic Quackery :
After the feast, Tobias and Sarah return to Nineveh. There, Raphael tells the youth to use the fish's gall to cure his father's blindness. (11:11).

Heathen stories...it figures....
The story draws on themes from a few Mesopotamian myths from the same time period,

 

Tobit tells his son to leave Nineveh before God destroys it according to prophecy (compare the Book of Nahum). After the prayer, Tobit dies at an advanced age.[21] After burying his father and mother, Tobias returns to Media with his family.

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fiction is not God's word, Catholic quote:
"Tobit is very different from most biblical books because of its fiction"

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Dating (wiki quote)

 

Tobias heals the blindness of his father Tobit, by Domingos Sequeira

The story in the Book of Tobit is set in the 8th century BC.[23] However, a number of historical errors (according to Miller, though some may dispute this) rule out contemporaneous authorship,[24] and most scholars now date the book's composition between 225 and 175 BC.[25] The direct quote in Tobit 2:6 from the Book of Amos ("Your feasts shall be turned into mourning, and all your mirth into lamentation"[26]) indicates that the prophetic books had become not only fixed but authoritative, signalling a post-exilic date.[25] Moreover, reference to the "Book of Moses" (6:13, 7:11–13) and the "Law of Moses" (7:13) echo identical phrasing in the Book of Chronicles, which some believe was composed after the 4th century BC.[27] Contextually, dating Tobit's authorship to after 175 BC is problematic, as the author expresses no awareness of Seleucid attempts to Hellenize Judea (from 175 BC) or of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucids (165 BC), nor does it espouse apocalyptic or messianic expectations upon which later writings focused.[28] Nevertheless, some scholars espouse a later date of composition of at least portions of Tobit.[29]

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Location and language (wiki quote)

No scholarly consensus exists on the place of composition, and "almost every region of the ancient world seems to be a candidate."[30] A Mesopotamian origin seems logical given that the story takes place in Assyria and Persia, as does the invocation of the Persian demon "aeshma daeva", rendered "Asmodeus" by Tobit.[30] But significant errors in geographical detail (such as the distance from Ecbatana to Rhages and their topography) render this origin questionable.[31] Arguments against and in favor of Judean or Egyptian composition also exist.[32]

 

The original language of composition remains unclear. Tobit may have been originally composed either in Aramaic or Hebrew, since fragments of Tobit in both languages have been discovered at Qumran.

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Genre (wiki quote)

The book is closely related to Jewish wisdom literature. This is especially clear in Tobit's instructions to Tobias before his departure for Media in Chapter 4, which particularly praise the value of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Manuscripts[edit]

 

As stated, fragments of Tobit in both Aramaic and Hebrew have been discovered at Qumran.[33][34] Jerome described his version for the Vulgate as being made from an Aramaic text available to him.

 

TWO VERSIONS  Surviving Greek translations are found in two versions.

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VERSION 1 = The shorter, which Robert Hanhart called Greek I Version in his edition of the Septuagint, is found in Codex Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Venetus, and most cursive manuscripts.

 

VERSION 2 = The Greek II version, 1700 words longer, is found in Codex Sinaiticus and closely aligns with the Hebrew and Aramaic fragments found at Qumran (a digging site) .

 

Apparently the Old Latin (La) manuscripts are also translated from the longer Greek II version. Most English translations since 1966 have relied on the Greek II version.[34]

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footnote: please remember when studying this fake bible book that the Alexandrian ms (now thought to be forgeries) contained a longer version of Tobit now adopted by the Orthodox and Catholics (but isnt adding to it in this way changing their canon?) and so this might mean older bibles and newer bibles have different chapter and verse.

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footnote

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