It conflicts with historical truth.
It conflicts with historical truth.
§ 181. [III] The Greek edition conflicts not only with the Latin version but also with historical truth. According to the claim of the Greek edition, the defection of Israel from the house of Jerusalem occurred when the elder Tobias was still a young man: “… when I was young, the whole tribe of my father Naphtali revolted from the house of Jerusalem” (Tobit 1:4 [Grk.]). That revolt occurred in the year of the world 2971, according to the computation of Crentzheimius and Reusnerus. The same elder Tobias became blind (Tobit 2:11) at night (v. [9, Grk.]), on the festival of Pentecost (v. 1 [Grk.]), after the death of Sennacherib at the hands of his two sons (Tobit 1:24), after the flight from Judea (v. 21), which occurred in the year of the world 3241 (2 Kings 19:37). Add the eight years of his blindness (Tobit 14:2) and the ninety-two years after he recovered his vision, and he lived for 158 years (Tobit 14:13). He became blind when he was fifty-eight (v. 2), and there were eight years of his blindness. But if we take the sum of that entire time from the defection of Israel from the house of Jerusalem, that is, from the year of the world 2971 (at which time suppose that Tobias was twenty years old) until the death of Sennacherib, which occurred in the year 3241, there will be 290 years. Add the eight years of blindness and the ninety-two from the recovery of his sight, and the years will rise to 380. Tobias would have to have lived for so many years, though the Greek edition gives him only 158 years. Yet this smaller number will fit if you begin counting not from the revolt of the ten tribes but from the Assyrian captivity that occurred in the year of the world 3232. From that time nine years passed to the death of Sennacherib. To that add the age of Tobias (fifty-eight), the eight years of blindness, and the ninety-two years after the restoration of his sight, and the sum will be 158. The Latin version sets the years of the life of the elder Tobias as only 102 (Tobit 14:2), and this version was made authentic in the Council of Trent.
We should question, then, how these years of life agree with historical truth. The elder Tobias is taken captive (Tobit 1:2) in the year of the world 3242; when he was fifty-six he loses his sight (Tobit 14:3), which happens after the death of Sennacherib (Tobit 1:24). Between the captivity of Israel and Sennacherib’s death there are nine years, so Tobit was forty-seven when he was taken captive. After the recovery of his sight in his sixtieth year (Tobit 14:3), Tobias lived forty-two years (Tobit 14:1). The sum of forty-seven, nine, four, and forty-two is 102 years (v. 2). Yet vv. 6-7 say that it was near the time for the burned house of the Lord to be rebuilt. The temple was burned in the year of the world 3365, that is, in the 133rd year from the captivity of Israel. Add to these 133 years the forty-seven that Tobias was when he was taken prisoner. Add also the fifty years or so after the burning of the temple. Because it says it was near the time for it to be rebuilt, it seems to be indicating the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity, which, with these words, it is hinting runs to the end. This will come out to a total of 230 years. Therefore either the elder Tobias died in his two hundredth year, contrary to Tobit 14:2, or vv. 6-7 are patently false when they say it was close to the rebuilding of the burned house of God. Thus the younger Tobias is said (Tobit 1:11) to have been captured along with his father by Shalmaneser in the year of the world 3232; the temple of God was burned while both the younger and elder Tobias were still alive (Tobit 14:3) in the year of the world 3365. So from the capture of Tobias to the burning of the temple, 133 years passed. But the younger Tobias is said to have lived only ninety-nine years (Tobit 14:16). Add the years, few though they be, that he had when he was taken prisoner and that time when he lived in Media after his parents died (Tobit 14:15), where he saw his fifth generation. Why, consider the fact that when the elder Tobias was about to die, he says, “It is close to the time for the scattered Israelites to be returned to their land and for the house of the Lord, which was burned, to be rebuilt” (Tobit 14:6-7). At that time the younger Tobias did not yet have grandsons, much less great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons, but only sons (Tobit 14:5). Now, give us a constant and solid reconciliation.
Thus Tobias, about to die after living for 102 years, affirms on his bed that “the house of God,” that is, the temple at Jerusalem, “burned by the Chaldeans, was going to be rebuilt” (Tobit 14:5). Yet that temple had not yet been burned when Tobias died. Were one to compare Tobit 1:2 with 2 Kings 17 and 18, it will appear that Tobias was deported into the Assyrian captivity in the days of Shalmaneser, king of the Assyrians. But Shalmaneser took the Israelities captive into Assyria in the ninth year of King Hoshea of Israel (2 Kings 17:6). King Hezekiah of Judah began to rule in the third year of Hoshea (2 Kings 18:1). Therefore Tobias was deported into captivity about the sixth year of Hezekiah. But from the sixth year of Hezekiah to the burning of the temple, there are roughly 130 years, for Hezekiah ruled for twenty-nine years. If you subtract the six years during which he ruled before the captivity, there remain twenty-three. Hezekiah’s successor, Manasseh, ruled for fifty-five years; Manasseh’s successor, Amon, ruled for two years; Amon’s successor, Josiah, thirty-one years; Josiah’s successor, Jehoahaz, three months; Jehoahaz’s successor, Jehoiakim, eleven years; Jehoiakim’s successor, Jehoiachin, three months; and Jehoiachin’s successor, Zedekiah, eleven years. It was during his eleventh year that the temple was burned. All this is related in 2 Kings 18 and 21-25. The sum of these years is 130. Tobias, then, must have died before the temple was burned. Johannes Benedictus of Paris, in a marginal note to the Book of Tobit, admits that the temple at Jerusalem still stood at the time when Tobias died, thus he is taking his words in a prophetic sense. Because of the certainty of their prophecies of coming events, the prophets speak in the past tense. Yet his words are historical, for he sets forth the burning of the temple as an accomplished fact but foretells its rebuilding as future.