Judith the heroine? Lies, seduction, and murder in cultural perspective.

Abstract

Many readers have questioned Judith's status as heroine, describing her behavior as morally reprehensible at worst and morally ambiguous at best largely on the basis of her use of deceit to establish herself in the camp of the enemy and to lure Holofernes into a position of weakness. A study of the use of deceit in the Hebrew scriptures, Pseudepigrapha, and classical Greek literature as an acceptable--even praiseworthy virtue to be employed when advancing the interests of one's reference group against outsiders shows Judith to be acting very much in line with the path defined as virtuous in Mediterranean cultures. Judith finds herself in the midst of a web of honor challenges and uses culturally appropriate strategies to defend her honor, the honor of her people, and the honor of God.

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The image of Judith, beautiful, chaste, demure--and holding the bloody, decapitated head of Holofernes in her hand--awaits visitors in almost every sizeable collection of art today (Stone offers an interpretation of changing trends in the depiction of this subject; see also Montley). Her story, clearly a work of "historical fiction" rather than a work of history (Skehan: 151; Moore: 79; Metzger: 50-51; deSilva 2002: 92-95), is straightforward. The enemy forces of Nebuchadnezzar, commanded by the general Holofernes, are dispatched to Judea to punish the Judeans for not supporting Nebuchadnezzar in his war with Arphaxad. The little town of Bethulia, the last stronghold on the way to Jerusalem itself, is besieged, and the elders of the town agree to surrender to Holofernes rather than watch the population starve to death. Judith emerges from her private life of widowhood to chastise the elders for their lack of faith, and declares that God will deliver the town through her.

She goes to the enemy camp, pretending to flee as a refugee from the destruction that God has revealed to her would befall her city. Welcomed by Holofernes, she stays with him three days and wins him over with ambiguous and ironic promises that would leave the oracle at Delphi in awe of her skill in hiding the truth. Accepting his invitation to a drinking party--the goal of which had to be obvious to all--she allowed Holofernes to lead her off to his bed, where he passed out drunk. Alter a prayer for strength, she hacked off his head and walked out of the camp, having prepared for her getaway by establishing, as a regular ritual, a pattern of going to a nearby spring to pray and perform purifications.

Returning from the lent of the general of the enemy army to her besieged hometown of Bethulia, and presenting her trophy to the local elders, she is greeted with benediction: "Blessed are you ... above other women!" (Jdt 13:18), one that cannot now but help recall a very different model of feminine piety, one much more acceptable to modern sensibilities. After this event, and specifically on account of this event, "for the rest of her life she was honored throughout the whole country" (Jdt 16:21). She is eagerly sought after as a marriage partner (apparently with no lingering fears of what she will do to the man in that bed; Jdt 16:22), though she refuses all suitors out of loyalty to her dead husband's memory. She had lied to the enemy general about God and her people's spiritual condition; she led him on using all her wiles; she encouraged his lust; and she killed him with his own sword as he lay defenseless in his bed. Concerning all this, the elders said that she walked "in the straight path before our God" (Jdt 13:20), and that "God is well pleased with" her actions (Jdt 15:10).

And Nobody Has Trouble with This?!

Modern readers rarely show Judith the same degree of approval and appreciation offered by her contemporaries in the world of the story. With words perhaps better suited to the closing argument of a prosecutor than a critical interpreter, E. C. Bissell comments:

   Her way is strewn with deception from first to last, and yet she is
   represented as taking God into her counsels and as having his
   special blessing in her enterprise.... If the conduct of Jael, in
   seeking on the spur of the moment the life of a sleeping guest and
   fugitive who had confided himself to the protection of her tent, is
   worthy of reprobation, there are elements of moral turpitude in the
   character of Judith even more reprehensible.

   Hers was a deliberately planned assassination. It was attempted at
   the imminent risk of sacrificing her own purity. It was carried out
   by a series of deceptions which would do credit, not to a woman,
   but to a master of finesse and falsehood. God's blessing was
   invoked not only on the enterprise in general, but on the
   deceptions themselves [163].

Bissell was particularly disturbed about Judith's flirting with the ruin of her own sexual purity, going so far as to claim that she would have gone all the way with Holofernes if he didn't oblige her by passing out before consummating his desires, equally content to dispatch him in the afterglow. Perhaps we should not be too surprised to find Bissell (163), in a manner typical of late 19th-century thinking about Judaism, condemning the religion of the author, which was able to stomach--indeed to bless--deception, teasing, and murder, but not the violation of "the ceremonial law in the least particular" (Judith was careful while in the Gentile enemy's camp to eat the food she bad prepared upon the plates she had brought with her, and she also performs lustral purifications each night before prayer; see Jdt 10:5; 11:13; 12:2, 7-9, 19).

During the twentieth century, readers became less aggressive in their attacks on the heroine, but still wondered about Judith's moral integrity (see, e.g., Harrington: 42). At best, they consider her morality to be en par with the questionable ethics reflected in such maxims as "all's fair in love and war" and "the end justifies the means." She's not the most shining example of moral behavior, but the unusual circumstances that threatened her people might justify her unusual plan for resolution (Enslin: 14; Harrington: 42; Pfeiffer: 300).

Seeking a Culturally-Informed Assessment

If reading Judith in light of modern ethical norms results in an impasse in coming to terms with Judith's behavior (and, more especially, the author's unwavering commendation and blessing of her behavior), reading Judith in light of the cultural values that framed ethical questions during the Second Temple Period offers a means by which to move forward in our understanding of her story--and her praise. A culturally sensitive reading invites us to read the story again in terms of honor and shame, and especially in terms of the dynamics of challenges to honor, contests for honor, and the place for deception in strategies for preserving honor (on honor and shame in the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman periods, see deSilva 2000:23-94 and the bibliography there).

Judith was written by a Judean living in Palestine, probably composed in Hebrew (Bissell: 164; Moore: 70; Metzger: 42), during the Hasmonean period, whose history the author echoes at several points. Antiochus IV's authorization of a Gentile cult in the Temple of Jerusalem (1 Mace 1:41-43, 54-55, 59) resonates with Holofernes' plan to replace Judaism with the worship of Neduchadnezzar (Jdt 3:8; 4:12). The author looks back upon the Temple and its sacred accouterments being recently polluted and cleansed (Jdt 4:1-3), reflective of the events of 167-164 BCE, rather than being destroyed and rebuilt, which would be more closely reflective of the earlier devastation of the Temple under the historical Nebuchadnezzar. The climax of the story--the butchering of the enemy general and the rout of his army--reconfigures the story of the defeat of Nicanor and his army in many particulars (1 Mace 7:43-50; see Moore: 50-51). The author is thus firmly located in an ancient Semitic culture in which ethics were negotiated in terms of the preservation of honor and the avoidance of disgrace, for whom moral obligations to kin, nation, and God differed from moral obligations to outsiders who threatened the honor of kin, nation, and God (see deSilva 2000: 165-73). Defense of honor by honorable means was the highest good, and--this is the sticking point--the use of deceit to protect one's own, one's kinship group's, or one's nation's honor was an honorable means.

The idea that "knowledge is power" is hardly novel. The inhabitants of the Hellenistic-era Mediterranean and Levant valued knowledge about a competing individual or family or, on a larger scale, enemy force as a resource that could be exploited to gain honor at the expense of the outsider. Where knowledge would be thus exploited, concealing information, deceiving, and projecting false fronts were acceptable defensive strategies, necessary for the primary goal of preserving one's own honor and the honor of one's primary reference group (Pilch: 128; du Boylay; Gilsenan). Knowing the "truth" is a privilege to be enjoyed by those who will not use such knowledge to the detriment of one's household or people (as the context determines the scope of that "people").

When honor or security stands in jeopardy, concealing the truth and even outright lying emerge among the strategies that could be used honorably to stave off harm (Pilch: 130). Such a policy does not violate the ninth commandment, which prohibits an aggressive policy of lying pursued for the sake of, and in the juridical context of, gaining a wrongful conviction in a court. Other commandments certainly seek to limit the use of deceit, but only as part of a much larger program of encouraging Israelites to maintain the sense that their kinship group extends to their entire people. The command to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18) enjoins keepers of the covenant to regard one another as members of a single, cooperative group; the consequence would follow that competition and strategies like deceit would be out of place. The question "who is my neighbor?" posed to Jesus (Luke 10:29) shows the difficulty Judeans had with these restrictions.

Jerome Neyrey observes that "those who deceive are cheered by the crowd, even as those who have been 'taken in' smart from the shame" (Neyrey: 42). This would also serve as a concise plot summary of Judith. Judith's behavior is, in this regard, fully legitimated by the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly as these were interpreted in the Second Temple Period. In her prayer to God prior to leaving Bethulia, Judith herself invokes the "zeal" of her ancestor Simeon (Jdt 9:2-4), whose zeal was manifested (in collusion with his brother Levi) in subterfuge and violence--notably in defense of the violated honor of their sister Dinah (the story is recorded in Genesis 34). After Shechem violated Dinah, he proposed marriage and an alliance with Jacob's tribe. The sons of Jacob "answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully" (Gen 34:13), luring them into a position of weakness by requiring their whole (male) population to be circumcised before such a marriage could take place. On the third day, when the pain was at its worst, Simeon and Levi led the way slaughtering the groaning Shechemites, repaying them for dishonoring their family.

Jacob, of course, did not approve of his sons' action, even going so far as to curse their anger upon his deathbed (Gen 49:6-7). But the author of Judith is not alone in suggesting that it was in fact Jacob who was in the wrong and that Simeon and Levi showed true righteousness in that episode. The author of TESTAMENT OF LEVI depicts God himself overturning Jacob's verdict, attributing to the Almighty himself the order to take vengeance on Shechem. In place of his father's blessing, God rewards Levi's zeal to keep Israel pure with the honor of a perpetual priesthood (T. LEVI 5-8). Once again, then, God's sanction rests upon deception and violence as the means by which to preserve the honor of God's people.

Another story that lies just beneath the surface of Judith is that of Jael and Sisera, found in Judges 4-5. The similarities between the stories are obvious. An enemy general acts upon the orders of a foreign, faraway king (White: 13). A military conflict between two armies is resolved in a private tent between a man and a woman, followed by a victory song (White: 6). God gives the enemy "into the hand of a woman," a refrain in both texts (Judg 4:9; 4:21; 5:26; Jdt 8:33; 9:10; 12:4; 13:14; 15:10; 16:5; White: 7-8; see also van Henten: 242). Both heroines employ deceit and violate the sacred code of hospitality (Jael as host, Judith as guest). Most to the point, both stories praise the heroine's use of deceitful means by which to gain the upper hand over the enemy of her people (Judg 5:24-27; Jdt 16:5-9).

The TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS provide another informative window into this ethical world in the TESTAMENT OF JOSEPH, which is used to teach two basic moral lessons. First, of course, Joseph instructs his descendants (including the actual readers of the first-century-BCE text) in the importance of resisting the power of lust and temptations to sexual immorality. He provides an example of temperance and self-mastery in the face of Potiphar's wife's unrelenting attempts to entice him (T.JOS. 2-10; see also 4 Maccabees 2:1-6). But he also provides a model for hiding the shame of one's kin, a topic that occupies equal space in the TESTAMENT. Joseph lies to the Ishmaelites who purchased him, telling them he was born a slave; he lies to Potiphar (called Pentephris in this version) to his own hurt, insisting that he was born a slave. Under a lashing, he maintains this deception (when telling the truth would have meant his release from slavery!) all for the purpose of hiding from outsiders the fact that his brothers did a shameful thing: "you see how much I endured for the sake of not bringing shame upon my brothers" (T. Jos. 17.2). This is a stunning example of using deceit so as to protect the reputation of one's kinship group, attested also by Philo of Alexandria (LIFE OF JOSEPH 247-48). The fact that these storytellers were willing to contradict Genesis 40:15, where Joseph blatantly claims to be a victim of kidnaping, and thus a freeborn person unjustly enslaved, bears witness to the growing importance of this cardinal value: the virtuous person protects the honor of his or her kinship group at all costs, even if he or she has to lie repeatedly to do so.

Nor was this mindset by any means limited to Semitic people groups. The Greeks had long prized deception as a tool for the defeat of the enemy. Herodotus presents the Athenian admiral Themistocles as a rather prominent--and lauded--example. He convinced the commanders of the Persian fleet that he favored their cause and would betray the Greeks to them. He thus lured them into the battle of Salamis where the Greek forces were waiting in ambush and the Persians were soundly defeated (Herodotus: HISTORY: 8.75-90). Caponigro (55-56) suggests that the author even patterned Judith, in part, after Themistocles. The honors that were accorded Themistocles after this victory bear witness to the fact that his contemporaries regarded what we might call a disgraceful subterfuge to be a praiseworthy stratagem by which to lure one's enemies into a position of weakness and gain the advantage, if the enemy were too stupid to be on their guard against deception, the disgrace is theirs.

Though an example from Greek fiction, Euripides's tragedy HECUBA offers another stunning instance of approved deceit. Hecuba, having already seen the destruction of Troy, the murder of her husband, King Priam, and the deaths or enslavement of almost all of her children, now receives word that her one surviving son, Polydorus, has been found murdered at the hands of Polymestor, the King of Thrace, to whom Priam and Hecuba had entrusted this youth. Apparently, Polymestor had killed him as soon as he heard news of Troy's fall, so as to seize the gold for himself that had come with the boy to maintain him throughout his life. Hecuba, a prisoner of the Greeks, convinces Agamemnon to help her just this much--to let her maidservant escape to bring a deceitful message to Polymestor, inviting him and his two young sons to her tent.

When Polymestor and his sons arrive, Hecuba lures them inside with peaceable words and ambiguous speech that hide her true intentions, and with the lie that she wants to entrust to him the gold she and the Trojan female captives have smuggled out of Troy. Once inside, the Trojan women similarly feign friendship and admiration until they have deprived Polymestor of his weapons and his sons--then, pinning down his limbs, they kill the two boys and put out Polymestor's eyes. Agamemnon appears, feigning surprise at what has happened (more deceit), and after hearing both sides of the case (as if an impartial judge) judges Hecuba's cause to be just. Not a word of rebuke is spoken by Agamemnon concerning the deceitful means by which Hecuba maneuvered her enemy to gain the advantage, though Polymestor certainly protested the point. Agamemnon merely assented that he got his due.

Judith--a Champion of Honor

The author of Judith weaves a complex pattern of challenges to honor, and attempts to defend honor on the part of the challenged, upon the loom of his plot. The initial and overarching tension in the plot comes from a challenge to the honor of King Nebuchadnezzar, posed by the vassal territories in the western part of his empire who slight him and shame his messengers (Jdt 1:11-12). This provokes Nebuchadnezzar's response, his quest to restore his injured honor by displaying his power over their bodies and their lands in a punitive expedition led by his general, Holofernes (Jdt 1:12; 2:1), a quest in which Nebuchadnezzar is largely successful (Jdt 2:28). The first honor challenge seems to be successfully met by the end of the second chapter, with the western provinces now showing once more the fear and respect for Nebuchadnezzar, whose power is made evident in Holofernes, that they failed to display in response to his summons in 1:11. Those who thought too lightly of Nebuchadnezzar's worth (and power) have now been "educated" anew.

At this point, as the first-announced honor contest is being resolved in Nebuchadnezzar's favor, a second honor contest emerges with far more at stake. Holofernes challenges the honor of the local gods throughout the western provinces of Nebuchadnezzar's empire, destroying their sacred places and commanding worship of the king instead (3:8). This was not part of Nebuchadnezzar's original commission to Holofernes (Moore: 142-43 suggests that Holofernes is exercising his own prerogatives here), but the author may have deferred this detail to this point in the narrative for the sake of unfolding the nature of the second honor challenge only after the first honor challenge appeared to be (almost completely) met. No Judean reader would be surprised to find the gods of the other nations taking this lying down, since they are "no gods." Holofernes's brazen challenge framed in the question "What god is there except Nebuchadnezzar?!" (Jdt 6:2) requires, however, that the One God answer. Achior the Ammonite, who had been exiled from Holofernes's presence on account of his testimony to the power of Israel's God, tells the residents of Bethulia what the general had said. The Judeans recognize right away the "arrogance" (hyperephania, 6:19), the impudent assault on God's honor, lodged in Holofernes's words, asking God to act to protect God's honor, specifically as that honor is embodied in the people whom God has committed God's Self to protect. The remainder of the story is now framed by this new honor contest, with the honor of God on the line and awaiting a response (one that will, indeed, come through Judith--for strategic reasons).

Judith clearly understands that God's honor is at stake. As she prays to God for guidance and empowerment, she concludes with her statement of purpose: that "every tribe know and understand that you alone are God ... and that there is no other" (Jdt 9:14). Thus she poses quite directly a counterchallenge to Holofernes' challenge (6:2): The God of Israel alone is God. She also understands with far greater clarity and conviction than the town's elders that God's people are obliged to protect God's honor with their very lives if need be. She rebukes the elders for agreeing to surrender after five days, if God does not deliver them within that time, since the fall of Bethulia will expose God's Temple in Jerusalem to desecration. She reminds them that they, as God's servants, would be accountable for not defending the Temple, the physical representation of God's honor (Jdt 8:21-25; see also 9:7-8, 14). In the end, she commits herself completely to defend God's honor, and plans to reveal the hollowness of Holofernes's boast against God (on Nebuchadnezzar's behalf) by creating an opportunity for God to bring defeat and shame upon Holofernes and his army by means of something accounted weakest of all--the hand of a woman (9:9-14; 16:5-6; cr. Judg 9:54).

Then Judith goes to work. She begins to engage those standard strategies of defense for which she has been most thoroughly censured by modern critics, but most praised by her ancient compatriots. Her own skill in luring the enemy on is, for her, a source of great credit, bearing witness to her intelligence in speech, a treasured resource indeed. So skilled is she that even the oath--that verbal tool that existed to guarantee truthfulness--becomes on her lips a rhetorical resource for subterfuge. After all, what does swearing "by the life of Nebuchadnezzar" mean to her (Jdt 11:7), when Nebuchadnezzar was a mere mortal in her opinion (whose life, indeed, was worth nothing in her eyes). She does not violate the third commandment, which existed to safeguard the veracity of the oath sworn invoking the honor of the One God. She conceals the real state of affairs within her town (how, indeed, would Holofernes use the information that they were five days away from surrender?). Rather, she must craft a report that will give Holofernes the knowledge that, if he reflects how to use it to his advantage against her people, as he surely will, will lure him into biding his time and giving Judith the opportunity she needs to move against him. She must also present herself credibly--and deceptively--so that her report will be believed, and so she poses as a woman endowed with the gift of prophecy, who for her own personal safety is willing to tell Holofernes the moment when her people defile themselves and thus lose God's protection (11:17, 19). We must also note that she presented herself as a sex object, decking herself out "to entice the eyes of all the men who might see her" (10:4). The ancient audience will not chasten Judith as they hear this story; they will chasten Holofernes for his foolishness for letting his guard down and being so quick and eager to believe that this outsider would betray her kin and nation to those that were strangers to her.

Once she achieves her objective, namely putting Holofernes into a holding pattern while he waits for a prophetic revelation that will never come, she can take a step back from outright lies to ambiguous speech, cloaking her true meaning in phraseology that Holofernes, his mind clouded by the visual stimuli that were already working upon him, will interpret in a manner favorable to himself. This results in an abundance of irony sure to delight the listener (see, for example, Jdt 12:4, 14, 18). Again the ancient audience would count it a strike against Holofernes that he did not keep his mental balance, perceive the double-meanings, and uncover her deception.

As the tension mounts toward the resolution of the second honor challenge, yet a third honor contest is engaged, not between nations, nor between gods, but between a man and a woman. Indeed, it is only through this third honor contest that the second will be resolved. Holofernes is not merely motivated by lust here (though there is certainly enough of that motivation present). He also seeks to bolster his (male) honor and even uphold the honor of his (male) armies by seducing this Jewess and penetrating her. Indeed, he perceives an implicit challenge having been leveled at him by Judith's very presence in the camp: if he doesn't have sex with her, he thinks she will laugh at him--it will be a disgrace to himself and his army (12:13; Levine 1992: 20). Judith is a heroine in the cause of God in part because of the risk she was willing to take--putting herself in the power of a drunken soldier--in order to have a shot at protecting her people and defending the honor of her God.

Judith defeats Holofernes because he did not remain master of himself. Through excessive drink and sexual excitement, Holofernes acted intemperately and, having lost command of himself, gave away his ability to defend himself like a man. Because he acted imprudently, not only trusting the words of the enemy, but also trying to take her to bed, he gave her every advantage over him. And thus he comes to disgraceful defeat, a mighty general beheaded at the hands of a woman. With his failure, he brings shame upon Nebuchadnezzar (14:18; 13:17). He who was formerly winning the first honor contest now loses to the Israelites, who celebrate their heroine as their "exaltation" (since she allowed them to get "one-up" on Nebuchadnezzar), their "pride," and their "boast" (their claim to victory in these contests for honor on their own and God's behalf; 15:9). Her victory is seen as the public manifestation, and restoration, of God's honor (16:4-5). And Judith herself never lost her own honor, female honor being inextricably bound up with sexual exclusivity (Pitt-Rivers: 42). Indeed, at the pinnacle of her triumph, she still must solemnly affirm with an oath that her own "honor" remained uncompromised in the tent of Holofernes (13:16). Contra Bissell, Judith and her audience would not have regarded the loss of her chastity--and with it, her honor, to have been an acceptable loss.

Was Judith guilty of violating "the basic moral laws in the interest of her people" (Pfeiffer: 302)? Or did Judith "break the law in order to maintain the greater principle for which it stands" (Craven: 115)? Perhaps, on the contrary, Judith's response to the threat posed to God's honor and her people's safety, accompanied by the author's unmitigated praise of the heroine, challenge us instead to hold up to scrutiny our own presuppositions about how Jews of the Second Temple Period interpreted and applied those "moral laws" (among them, presumably, several of the Ten Commandments). This kind of study does not address the question of how modern devotees of the God of Israel should fulfill those commandments, but it does help us to attain an "insider's perspective" on Judith as a truly moral character, a woman of God who exhibits integrity throughout the story--from her pious practices in the tent pitched on her roof to her speech and deeds in the tent of Holofernes.

The examination of the cultural context of the "proper" use of deceit may also help us reflect more fully on the true barb of deceit, that part of deceit that makes it morally opprobrious, and that is its effects on relationships. In certain cases, deceit appropriately mirrors the relationship between outsiders. But where deceit is used among people who should properly relate to one another as "insiders," the lie "transgresses" the relationship, betraying the trust that should (morally) exist between members of the same family or the same "community." It makes the friend a stranger; it alienates those to whom intimacy and trust is due, and is, on those grounds, unjust and, therefore, a "wrong." Judith does not give us license to lie, nor license to censure her for lying. Rather, she warns us quite bluntly to beware toward whom we use deceit, for it is the marker and maker of relational boundaries.

A Model Woman for Women and Men

Even though authors in the modern period have criticized Judith's strategy, and even impugned her moral integrity, the Book of Judith remains, from beginning to end, a moral tale. It affirms once again for its audience the basic principle of Deuteronomistic theology that faithfulness to the Mosaic Law ensures God's favor and protection for God's people, whereas transgression of the Torah alienates Israel from God and God's benefits (Jdt 5:17-21; 8:18-20; 11:10-15). Judith, that Delilah for the cause of God, emerges as a model for the pious and rigorous observance of the holy covenant, an example of the power of prayer when joined to faithful action, and a proof of the power of God.

Her particular strategy of restoring her people's honor may even have served in its time as a legitimation of the Hasmonean high priests' foreign policy, for the latter also often made opportunistic and entangling alliances with their Greco-Syrian overlords, "sleeping with the enemy," as it were, in order to restore political independence to Judea after centuries of foreign domination. These surviving members of Judas Maccabaeus's family may not have been as "manly" and direct in their dealings as "the Hammer," but their strategies certainly consolidated and expanded the gains of Judas's military victories for the benefit of the whole people.

Judith exercised a notable influence in the early church (see Dubarle: 1.110-25 for an inventory of patristic witnesses to Judith). She remains a stunning example of how God could equip a woman with power to do "manly things," and is praised by Clement of Rome for her willingness to put herself in danger for the love of her people (1 CLEMENT 55:4-5). Origen considers Judith's use of falsehood to have been necessary in her circumstances, and even as providing an example for Christians who face similar trials (e.g., using deception to protect sisters and brothers from detection in times of persecution; STROMATA 6; see also Jerome, ADVERSUS RUFINAM 1.474; Enslin: 48). And, not surprisingly, her commitment to remain faithful to one man throughout her life (and well past the end of his) is lauded as a model for Christian celibacy and the ideal of the univira, the "wife of one man" (Tertullian, DE MONOGAMIA 17; Methodius, CONVIVIUM DECEM VIRGINUM, Oration 11.2; Ambrose, DE VIRGINBUS 1.2.4; Moore: 64).

The author of Judith presents her achievement, and the honor that accrues to her as a result of her pious life both in her house and in the tent of Holofernes, as an example of what God can achieve through his faithful ones. Her story will arouse emulation in the hearts of the readers, whose commitment to the same piety will be confirmed and energized. She presents a new, and benign, honor challenge to the (ancient) hearers to live up to the mark set by such a heroine in ways appropriate to their own contexts, so as to attain similarly the approval and respect of their peers and progeny.

Works Cited

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Caponigro, Mark S. 1992. Judith, Holding the Tale of Herodotus. Pp. 47-60 in NO ONE SPOKE ILL OF HER": ESSAYS ON JUDITH, edited by James C. VanderKam. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.

Craven, Toni. 1983. ARTISTRY AND FAITH IN THE BOOK OF JUDITH. Chico, CA: Scholars Press.

deSilva, D. A. 2002. INTRODUCING THE APOCRYPHA: MESSAGE, CONTEXT, AND SIGNIFICANCE. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 2000. HONOR, PATRONAGE, KINSHIP, AND PURITY: UNLOCKING NEW TESTAMENT CULTURE. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity.

Dubarle, Andre Marie. 1966. JUDITH: FORMES ET SENS DES DIVERSES TRADITIONS. TOME I: ELUDES. TOME II: TEXTES. Rome, Italy: Institut Biblique Pontifical.

du Boylay, Juliet. 1976. Lies, Mockery, and Family Integrity. Pp. 389-406 in MEDITERRANEAN FAMILY STRUCTURES, edited by J. G. Peristiany. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Enslin, Morton and Solomon Zeitlin. 1972. THE BOOK OF JUDITH. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

Gilsenan, Michael. 1976. Lying, Honor, And Contradiction. Pp. 191-219 in TRANSACTION AND MEANING, edited by Bruce Kapferer. Philadelphia, PA: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.

Harrington, D.J. 1999. INVITATION TO THE APOCRYPHA. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

Levine, Amy-Jill. 1992. Sacrifice and Salvation: Otherness and Domestication in the Book of Judith. Pp. 17-30 in "NO ONE SPOKE ILL OF HER": ESSAYS ON JUDITH, edited by James C. VanderKam. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.

Metzger, B. M. 1957. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE APOCRYPHA. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Montley, P. 1978. Judith in the Fine Arts: The Appeal of the Archetypal Androgyne. ANIMA 4: 37-42.

Moore, Carey A. 1985. JUDITH. Anchor Bible 40. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Neyrey, Jerome. 1993. Deception. Pp. 38-12 in BIBLICAL SOCIAL VALUta AND THEIR MEANINGS, edited by J.J. Pilch and B.J. Malina. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Pfeiffer, R. H. 1949. HISTORY Or NEW TESTAMENT TIMES. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers.

Pilch, John J. 1992. Lying and Deceit in the Letters to the Seven Churches: Perspectives from Cultural Anthropology. BIBLICAL THEOLOGY BULLETIN 22: 126-35.

Pitt-Rivers, Julian. 1966. Honour and Social Status. Pp. 21-77 in HONOUR AND SHAME: THE VALUES OF MEDITERRANEAN SOCIETY, edited by J. G. Peristiany. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Skehan, Patrick. 1962. Why Leave out Judith? CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY 24: 147-54.

Stone, Nina. 1992. Judith and Holofernes: Some Observations on the Development of the Scene in Art. Pp. 73-94 in "NO ONE SPOKE ILL OF HER": ESSAYS ON JUDITH, edited by James C. VanderKam. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.

van Henlen, Jan Willem. 1995. Judith as Alternative Leader: A Rereading of Judith 7-13. Pp. 224-52 in A FEMINIST COMPANION TO ESTHER, JUDITH AND SUSANNA, edited by Athalya Brenner. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

White, Sidnie Ann. 1992. In the Steps of Jael and Deborah: Judith as Heroine. Pp. 5-16 in "NO ONE SPOKE ILL OF HER": ESSAYS ON JUDITH, edited by James C. VanderKam. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

David deSilva, PhD. (Emory University) is Trustees' Professor of New Testament and Greek at Ashland Theological Seminary, 910 Center Street, Ashland OH 44805 (e-mail: [e-mail]). His recent publications include 4 MACCABEES: A COMMENTARY ON THE GREEK TEXT OF CODEX SINAITICUS (SCS; Leiden: Brill, 2006), AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT: CONTEXTS, METHODS & MINISTRY FORMATION (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), INTRODUCING THE APOCRYPHA: MESSAGE. CONTEXT, AND SIGNIFICANCE (Grand Rapids. MI: Baker Academic, 2002), and articles on 4 Maccabees and Septuagint Exodus in NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES. CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY and VETUS TESTAMENTUM.