The Book of Judith.
The Book of Judith.
§ 191. We demonstrate that the Book of Judith is outside the canon with the following arguments.37 [I] It is not found in the Hebrew sources. Jerome uses this argument in his preface to the Book of Judith: “Among the Hebrews it is apocryphal and not suitable enough to corroborate matters that come into contention.” Nor is it a problem that in the same place he mentions that it was once written in the Chaldaic language, for he immediately adds: “Those versions were very corrupt and faulty.” Consequently, Jerome has translated sense for sense, not word for word, and that which he found unharmed in Chaldaic he translated with Latin words. Moreover, the Chaldaic version is not extant today, and the Greek text differs much from Jerome’s version.