It does not agree with historical truth.
It does not agree with historical truth.
§ 192. [II] It does not agree with historical truth. (1) In neither the Old nor New Testament is there mention of the city of Bethulia, which, according to this book [6:10; 15:7; 16:25], was encircled and assaulted by siege. Yet in the Book of Joshua, in the description of the division of the land of Canaan, not even the names of districts are omitted.
(2) There is no time to which the historical narrative contained in this book can be suitably referred. Some claim that it happened after the Babylonian captivity; some, that it happened before it. Some of the former refer it to the time of Cambyses, whom they want to be Nebuchadnezzar, as do Eusebius (Chronic.), Augustine (De civit. Dei, bk. 18, c. 26), Bede (De sex aetatibus), Lyra (on Judith 1), and Johannes Driedo (De script. ecclesiast., bk. 1, c. 2, part 2; bk. 3, c. 5, part 3). Others relate it to the time of Darius Hystaspes, as do Gerardus Mercator (Chronol.) and others. Sixtus Senensis (bk. 8, haeres. 11) claims that the Nebuchadnezzar mentioned in this book was Assuerus, the son of Darius Hystaspes, and that he ruled in Babylon after Cyrus was killed. Severus Sulpicius (Sacrae hist., bk. 2) thought that this account belonged to the rule of Artaxerxes Ochus. No king of Persia, however, was called Nebuchadnezzar. Furthermore, the kings of Persia had the seat of their empire in Babylon rather than in Nineveh. But now the man who sent Holofernes with an army to conquer the world is called Nebuchadnezzar and is said to have ruled in Nineveh. Some of these refer the history of Judith to the time of King Zedekiah, as does Gilbertus Genebrardus in Chronol., anno mundi 3560, bk. 2, where he says that this is the same Nebuchadnezzar who waged war against Zedekiah and destroyed Jerusalem. But how does this opinion agree with the notion that Judith lived long after that disaster and that peace is said to have existed throughout her life and long after? If we believe Genebrardus, Nebuchadnezzar sent Holofernes into Judea in the thirteenth year of his rule, and in the nineteenth year he transferred the rest of the Jews into Babylon. Some refer the account to the reign of King Josiah, as does Johannes Benedictus (marginal note to Judith 4).
§ 193. Bellarmine (De verbo Dei, bk. 1, c. 12) refutes each and every one of these opinions with several arguments and claims that the most serious authors—Eusebius, Augustine, Sulpicius, and Bede—were deceived in arranging this history at their time. This is the argument of reverence to the fathers, so often preached against. Bellarmine himself, however, claims that “the history of Judith occurred at the time of King Manasseh, namely, in the sixteenth year of his rule, which was also the thirteenth year of Merodach Baladan, king of Assyria and Babylon. In that year Baladan began the war commanded by Holofernes against the Jews.” In this point he follows Melchior Canus, bk. 11, c. 6.
However: (1) Judith 5:22 says that this account happened not at the time of King Manasseh, who lived after the Babylonian captivity, but after the return from that captivity. You see, Achior there speaks as follows:
Before this time, when they had abandoned the way that God had given them that they should walk therein, they were utterly destroyed through battles by many nations. Many of them were deported as captives to a country that was not their own. Now, however, they have returned to the Lord their God and from the dispersion by which they were dispersed. They have been united, have ascended this mountain region, and again are taking possession of Jerusalem.
From this we draw the obvious conclusion that this history of Judith is not canonical. After all, there were only two exiles of the Israelites before the final destruction of Jerusalem: the first when the Israelites who were living in Israel were deported into Assyria by Shalmaneser (and these never returned to the land of Canaan), and the other when the people of Israel who were living in the kingdom of Judah were led off during the reign of Zedekiah into the Babylonian captivity under King Nebuchadnezzar. When they returned from this captivity, Nebuchadnezzar had died many years earlier, and after their release from this captivity, there was no monarch named Nebuchadnezzar. Bellarmine writes (loc. cit.): “Nowhere do we read of Persian kings called Nebuchadnezzar, either in secular or sacred history, but only the Babylonian kings.” But following the release from captivity, the kingdoms of Assyria and Babylon had already been overthrown, and the kings of Persia were then in power. Here it should be mentioned that Nebuchadnezzar is said “to have ruled in Nineveh” (Judith 1:5). After the return from captivity, however, Nineveh no longer existed. In fact, the prophet Nahum, who prophesied at the time of King Hezekiah, foretold that the destruction of Nineveh would occur shortly (Nah. 2:[8]). This happened at the hands of the Chaldeans, who in this manner took all the power of the Assyrians for themselves.
In order that this may happen despite these difficulties, some respond that “Achior’s words must be taken to refer to the ten tribes who were deported into Assyria.” Those tribes, however, never returned from that dispersion nor took possession of Jerusalem, something that Achior nevertheless attributes to those exiles. Nor should anyone urge the prophecies of the prophets regarding the return of these tribes from that exile, since those prophecies were fulfilled spiritually through the calling to Christ’s kingdom in the New Testament. Therefore we stand firmly on this argument: that Achior is speaking about an abduction of many, through which the Jews, having lost possession of Jerusalem, would again take back Jerusalem after the exile ended. Bellarmine notices this and responds in a different way:
We must not take the words of Achior to mean the Babylonian captivity but the various afflictions that preceded it, especially the last, which had occurred when Manasseh was captured. He is saying that this should be understood concerning either the return from the dispersion or the return of King Manasseh with his people from Babylon or the return from those places where they had gone in their flight when the king of Assyria ravaged their land.
Yet Achior is speaking about the sort of captivity and dispersion in which also “the temple was leveled to the ground,” as is clear from the Greek text [of Judith 5:18]: “The temple of their God was brought down to the ground and their cities were taken.” But now, the destruction of the temple did not occur in the preceding afflictions but in the deportation into the Babylonian captivity. There was no destruction of the temple in the captivity of Manasseh, but when Zedekiah ruled, the temple finally was leveled to the ground. That Bellarmine may find a way out, he suspects that “those words are spurious” because they are not found in Jerome’s version. With this argument, however, he is arguing with himself, since in the preceding twelfth paragraph [§. duodecimo praecedente], as also in § Jam hoc idem, [Bellarmine] says, “The Greek codices are more accurate.” Furthermore, in 2 Chronicles 33 Manasseh alone is mentioned as being deported and returning, not “many people.” Achior, however, says, “Many of the Jews were taken captive into a land not their own.” Surely the Holy Spirit would not have been silent in the Books of Kings and Chronicles about so great and memorable an abduction and return, if such had happened at the time of Manasseh.
(2) If this account did happen at the time of Manasseh, how can we reconcile with historical truth what Judith 16:30 says about Judith: “In every time of her life there was no one to terrify Israel, and for many years after her death”? Manasseh ruled for fifty-five years (2 Chron. 33:1; 2 Kings 21:1). He was deported in the forty-first year of his rule. After a decade he returned and repented near the end of his life, according to Lyra (on 2 Kings 21). Therefore he remained among the living for scarcely four years after his return. Manasseh’s successor was his son Amon, who ruled for only two years. Amon’s successor was Josiah, who ruled for thirty-two years. Toward the end of Josiah’s reign, in the thirty-seventh year after Manasseh’s return from Babylon, all peace was removed and one war after another was stirred up against the Jews, at one time by the king of Egypt, at another time by the ruler of Babylon. How, then, is the assertion of the author of the Book of Judith about a peace of many years after the death of Judith possible? At the time of the siege of Bethulia, the widow Judith was still a young woman, as we conclude from the commendation of her beauty and from her being called a 
, puella [“girl”] in Judith 12:12. Therefore let us establish that she was thirty at that time (Bellarmine says she was forty.) She lived for one hundred years (Judith 16:28). There was, therefore, peace for seventy-five or sixty-five years after Bethulia was liberated and while Judith was still living. Likewise, we must concede a peace of the same length after Judith’s death. This we shall never be able to reconcile with the history of the kings of Judah, especially if a period of several years is interposed between the return of Manasseh from Babylon and that new war that is said to have started in the Book of Judith. You see, it is not likely that in the same year when it had released Manasseh, Assyria went up to attack Judea.
Bellarmine objects: “The captivity of Manasseh occurred at the beginning of his rule,” and this he tries to prove from Josephus, Antiquit., bk. 10, c. 5. But nowhere does Josephus say this; rather, he describes the history of Manasseh with no notation of time. In 2 Chronicles 33, before it speaks of deporting the king into Babylon, it says that at the beginning of his reign “he did according to the abominable practices of the heathen. He rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah had torn down and erected altars to the Baals and made sacred groves. He built altars in the temple to honor the host of heaven. He made his sons pass through the fire. He observed dreams, practiced augury, provided for magicians and enchanters. He set the sculpted image and molded image in the house of the Lord. He shed the blood of innocent people.” Also, according to Josephus: “He killed a prophet every day until Jerusalem was filled to the brim” (loc. cit.). Also, Josephus tells how “God, through the hand of His servants, urged him to repent.” All this could by no means have happened in one or two years. If we say that Manasseh was led off into captivity at the beginning of his reign, how did it happen that the Holy Spirit, when Manasseh ruled for fifty-five years, relates his activities in the Books of Kings as those of scarcely one or two years? You see, He mentions neither his abduction nor his repentance but only his impieties. If the abominations that Manasseh committed lasted for so short a time and the piety following his captivity lasted for thirty-nine years, how does it happen that, after Manasseh died and the state had been administered well for so many years, God nonetheless refers almost every reason for the Babylonian captivity to the sins of Manasseh rather than to the sins of his son Amon, which were much closer to the captivity (2 Kings 24:3; Jer. 15:4), or to the sins of Ahaz, who ruled wickedly for sixteen consecutive years (2 Kings 16:2)?
(3) If the hostile setting of the Assyrian siege of Bethulia had occurred at the time of Manasseh, how is it that the Holy Spirit, who twice describes the history of Manasseh in the canonical Books of Kings and Chronicles, does not once mention that serious war and miraculous victory with even a word?
(4) If the siege and deliverance of Bethulia did happen at the time of Manasseh, who, pray tell, was that Nebuchadnezzar under whose auspices that war was waged against the Jews? In those days there surely was not any Assyrian king called Nebuchadnezzar in either sacred or secular history. Bellarmine responds: “This was Merodach Baladan, who was called by another name, Nebuchadnezzar.” Yet he offers no clear reason for this guess of his. The Book of Judith always calls that king “Nebuchadnezzar” and never assigns him any other name. They object: “All the Babylonian kings were called ‘Nebuchadnezzars,’ just as the kings of Egypt were called ‘Pharaohs.’ “Yet they began to do this only after the great Nebuchadnezzar, who was the son of that Nebuchadnezzar who began to rule at the time of Josiah, who came thirty-three years after Manasseh. Furthermore, if the name “Merodach Baladan” was a proper noun but “Nebuchadnezzar” was an appellative title for that king, how does it happen that the Holy Spirit regularly gives that king only his appellative title and completely omits his proper name? (Yet we admit that this is merely a secondary and probable argument, not primary nor conclusive, for in Exodus the king of Egypt is called by his appellative title “Pharaoh” and his proper name is ignored.)
(5) If this history happened at the time of King Manasseh, how does it happen that in the preparations for a defensive war against the Assyrians the king is not mentioned, but the entire task is assigned to the priest Jehoiakim? If these things had happened at the time of Manasseh, this war would surely have been administered by King Manasseh or by his political leaders. Bellarmine responds: “Perhaps this war took place during the captivity of Manasseh; therefore in the king’s absence the priest took care of the business of the kingdom. Also, perhaps the king is not mentioned because the war did not reach the city of Jerusalem itself.” Yet if we must take Achior’s words to mean the return of Manasseh and the people of Israel from Babylon, these things could not have happened during the captivity of the king. And even if the war had not reached the city of Jerusalem itself, it still would have been the king’s responsibility to keep not just the chief city and capital but also his entire region safe from the perils of war. One would have to consider it shameful negligence and sleepiness were the king willingly to let an enemy wander about the territory of his kingdom with impunity, provided that he kept the capital safe. This would be the same as if one cared little about the amputation of his hands or feet, provided he kept his heart unharmed.
Bellarmine adds: “The same priest Eliakim, who is mentioned as having written to the Israelites (Judith 4:5), did many things at the time of Hezekiah in the name of the king (2 Kings 18). The prophecy was also made of him that he would be the father of all the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Isa. 22:21).” Yet the Greek text of the Book of Judith calls that priest “Joakim,” not “Eliakim.” The circumstances of the text in Isaiah show that this Eliakim acted in a political office. He undoubtedly governed the kingdom of Judah until Manasseh would return from captivity; afterward he remained in high office because of his faithful administration of the kingdom for Manasseh and all the people. But Joakim, whom the Book of Judith mentions, acted in an ecclesiastical office, as both his name and activities witness.
(6) If this history occurred during the captivity of Manasseh or, what finally seems more probable to Bellarmine, if it happened after King Manasseh had returned from the captivity, how does it agree with itself that at the beginning of c. 5 Holofernes perceives that the people of Judah are planning war and calls together his chiefs and leaders and asks them, “What people is this, and what leader do they have?” Certainly, if Manasseh had been captured earlier by the Babylonian king and been deported to Babylon, Holofernes and the Babylonians could not have been ignorant of either the people or the king of Judah.
(7) Finally, even if these things happened during the captivity of Manasseh, or if they happened immediately after his return from captivity, how does it agree with itself that the Jewish people are mentioned as having insulted the envoys of the king of Babylon and having sent them away disgracefully (Judith 1:11), though they had experienced both the kindness and the power of the Babylonians?
All this shows clearly that no definite time can be given with which the things mentioned in this book fit. If what is mentioned in this book occurred before the people returned from Babylon, it was false that the temple was leveled to the ground at this time, but Judith 5:22 makes this claim. If those things took place after the return, what Judith 1:5 mentions about Nebuchadnezzar’s war against Arphaxad is false, because at that time the Assyrians and Medes were obedient to the king of Persia.