Geoffrey D. Miller, «Canonicity and Gender Roles: Tobit and Judith as Test Cases», Vol. 97 (2016) 199-221
Clues from rabbinic literature suggest that several factors were at play in establishing the early Jewish canon, including the dating, theology, and language of disputed texts. Another vital yet overlooked criterion is adherence to patriarchy, and a careful analysis of the Books of Judith and Tobit illustrates how these texts failed to meet rabbinic standards for gender roles. Most notably, the countercultural figures of Judith and Anna would have scandalized the rabbis by their encroachment on traditionally male spheres of activity, their freedom of movement inside and outside the home, and their ability to chastise male characters without repercussions.
CANoNICITY ANd GeNder roLeS 215
cepts of the Mosaic Law meticulously, and he enjoins his son to do
likewise in chaps. 4 and 14. on the other hand, Tobit received his re-
ligious education from his grandmother deborah, even though “men,
rather than women, were to instruct their sons in the Law” 45. The rea-
son for the anomaly is that Tobit was orphaned when his father died,
leaving deborah to perform this duty out of necessity, but the narrator
could have omitted this superfluous detail from the story. readers
do not need to know the genesis of Tobit’s extraordinary piety, and
highlighting it could only embolden other women to infringe on this
masculine responsibility.
In addition, Tobit’s prayer in chap. 3 could also present a problem
for the rabbis, especially in comparison to Sarah’s prayer in the next
scene. Traumatized by his blindness and spurned by his wife’s re-
bukes, Tobit turns to God in despair and pleads for death. He has en-
dured taunting from his neighbor and his spouse, and he complains to
the Lord: “Great is the grief within me”, and, “It is better for me to die
than to endure so much misery in this life” (Tob 3,6). His kinswoman
Sarah also comes to the Lord in her distress and wishes to be free of a
life of torment, but she calms herself by the end of the prayer and puts
her fate in God’s hands: “If it does not please you, Lord, to take my
life, look favorably upon me and have pity upon me” (3,15). Her atti-
tude toward God and her manner of prayer are clearly superior
to those of Tobit. The juxtaposition of these two scenes heightens
“the contrast between the calm comportment of Sarah, a female and
still quite young and impressionable, and the weepy behaviour of
Tobit, a much older and presumably experienced male” 46.
Most troublesome for the rabbis, however, is Tobit’s wife Anna.
She transgresses gender boundaries, challenges her husband’s author-
ity, and refuses to control her tongue. When Tobit loses his eyesight,
he becomes dependent on others for financial support, and his nephew
Ahiqar takes care of him for two years. Tobit, however, remains blind
for two additional years, and the narrator sends Ahiqar off to elam
prematurely, replacing him with Anna as the family’s sole provider
(2,10-11). She finds work in the textile industry, producing woven ma-
terials and sending them to her employers in return for pay. Anna thus
45
Moore, Tobit, 110.
46
A. dILeLLA, “Two Major Prayers in the Book of Tobit”, Prayer from Tobit
to Qumran (eds. r. eGGer-WeNzeL – J. CorLeY) (deuterocanonical and Cognate
Literature Yearbook 2004; Berlin – New York 2004) 95-115, here 108. See also
BoW – NICKeLSBurG, “Patriarchy with a Twist”, 130.