Erbil in Iraq. Image from Pixabay.
The Book of Tobit (also known as the Book of Tobias) is one of the canonical books of the Old Testament. However, just like with the Book of Jonah, there are many people who maintain that the story is just too fantastic to be historical.
In this article, I’ll give a short summary of the book and then respond to Protestant as well as Atheist objections to this book.
This article takes some inspiration from the Catholic Encyclopedia article about the Book of Tobias and the book “Das Buch Tobias, übersetzt und erklärt” (“The Book of Tobias, translated and explained”) by the German priest Heinrich Reusch (published in 1857).
Short summary of the book
The Book of Tobit is about Tobit, a man from the tribe of Naphtali living in Assyrian captivity, and his son Tobias. The first two chapters describe the life of Tobit, how he was charitable to his poorer countrymen, and how he was employed in the service of the Assyrian king. He was married to a woman named Anna, and they had a son named Tobias. He fell out of favor with the king when he was caught burying Israelites who had been killed on the king’s orders. He went blind in his old age because one day, while sleeping outdoors, bird droppings got into his eyes.
One day, he sendt his son Tobias to a town called Rages, to recover some money he had deposited with a relative of his. That relative had a daughter named Sarah, who had tried to marry before, but a demon named Asmodeus had killed her seven previous husbands on their wedding nights.
But God sent the Archangel Raphael to help Tobias. The archangel took on human form and called himself “Azarias [the healer of Jahve] the son of the great Ananias [the goodness of Jahve]” (5:18). Tobias agreed to hire him as a traveling companion. During the journey, Raphael told Tobias about Sara, about how he had the right and the duty to marry her due to the customs and laws. He told Tobias to “lay the liver of the fish [they caught a fish together] on the fire, and the devil shall be driven away” (6:19) when he goes to meet Sara.
“And Tobias, remembering the angel’s word, took out of his bag part of the liver, and laid it upon burning coals. Then the angel, Raphael, took the devil, and bound him in the desert of Upper Egypt.” (8:2-3)
Tobias and Sarah got married and the devil didn’t bother them.
After Tobias and Sarah get back, Raphael reveals his identity and then explains to Tobit: “When thou didst pray with tears, and didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner, and hide the dead, by day, in thy house, and bury them by night, I offered thy prayer to the Lord. And because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee. And now the Lord hath sent me to heal thee, and to deliver Sara, thy son’s wife, from the devil. For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord.” (12:12-15)
After the angel left, Tobit began a song with a significant prophecy: Jerusalem is going to be rebuilt. But as he describes the rebuilt Jerusalem, he suddenly switches to describing the heavenly Jerusalem. “The gates of Jerusalem shall be built of sapphire, and of emerald, and all the walls thereof round about of precious stones.” (13:21)
At the hour of his death, Tobit spoke of the danger facing Nineveh and asked his son and his children to leave Nineveh after his wife’s death. After his mother’s death, Tobias moved with his family to live with his father-in-law and mother-in-law, and lived to see the destruction of Nineveh.
Raphael tells Tobias and Tobit to “bless ye God, and publish all his wonderful works” (12:20). This implies that the book was written by them. This means that the work is from the time of the Assyrian captivity, the 7th century BC.
The message of the Book of Tobit in the Christian tradition
The main message of the book is the importance of almsgiving and the burial of the dead as a work of mercy. This book introduces one of the three archangels mentioned by name in the Bible, Raphael.
In Matthew 25, Jesus lists six good deeds, like feeding the hungry and visiting the sick. The Church took these six good deeds, and added “burying the dead”, inspired by the Book of Tobit. These are known as the “Corporal Works of Mercy”.
The Church Fathers on the Book of Tobit
Several church fathers quoted the Book of Tobit and considered it part of the Bible.
St. Polycarp (d. 155), bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of St. John the Apostle, quotes Tobit 12:9 in his Letter to the Philippians: “alms delivereth from death”.
St. Clement of Alexandria (d. 210?) quotes Tobit 12:8 (“Prayer is good with fasting”) in his work “The Stromata”, Book VI, and calls the book “Scripture”.
Saint Athanasius in his Apologia Contra Arianos quotes the Book of Tobias and uses the phrase “as it is written”: “And they are not ashamed to parade the sacred mysteries before Catechumens, and worse than that, even before heathens: whereas, they ought to attend to what is written, ‘It is good to keep close the secret of a king [Tobit 12:7];’ and as the Lord has charged us, ‘Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine [Matthew 7:6].’”
St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (340?-397), wrote a book against usury with the title “De Tobia”.
All of the Church Fathers, who quoted or referenced the Book of Tobias, talked about it as if it were real, just like with the Book of Jonah.
As Reusch points out, the style of the text does not show signs that it was made up, instead, the “the tone and character of the narrative is consistently the simple historical”. (der Ton und Charakter der Erzählung ist durchweg der einfach historische) VII There are various pieces of information in it, which are not necessary for a fictional story, like the ancestry of Tobit (Ch. 1), his home and other additional details.
Protestant objections
After the Reformation, the Protestants removed the Book of Tobit from their Bible, and some of them started to attack the idea that it described real history.
Some Protestants tried to claim that the book goes against the Christian faith.
For example, some claim that the fact that Tobias healed his father’s blindness by smearing gall from a fish on his eyes is “sorcery”. Really? In John 9, Jesus healed a blind man by spitting on the ground, and smearing that on the eyes of the blind man.
For example, some people believe that the fact that Tobias smeared the gall of a fish on his father’s eyes, causing the cataract to fall from his eyes and allowing him to see again, was “magic”. However, in John 9, Jesus healed a blind man by spitting on the ground, making mud from his saliva, applying it to the blind man’s eyes, and sending him to wash himself in the pool of Siloe, which he did, and then he could see.
Others argue that the Book of Tobias is never quoted in the New Testament. However, there are other Old Testament books not quoted in the New Testament. For example, the Book of Ruth is never quoted either.
Others argue that Jews do not recognize the Book of Tobit as inspired. This is, of course, completely irrelevant, since the Jews do not recognize the New Testament either. As we have shown above, many early Christians accepted this book as canonical.
Another main point is that the angel apparently lied to Tobit when he gave his name as “Azarias the son of the great Ananias” (5:18) However, Azarias means “the healer of Jahve” and Ananias means “the goodness of Jahve”. So this could be understood as a description of himself.
Objections from nonbelievers
As Reusch explains, it is very likely that the original language of the book was Chaldean, which was then lost. There are three Greek versions, a Syriac version and also a few medieval Hebrew versions. Finally, the Vulgate is based on the (now lost) Aramaic version.
Many of the objections raised by atheists against the Book of Tobit can actually be easily dismissed. This is because the book exists in various languages and there are relatively many differences in those versions, but the official Bible of the Catholic Church, the Vulgate, which was based on the Aramaic, doesn’t contain most of the passages objected to.
One of the main points of criticism regarding the Book of Tobit is that the story is supposedly legendary, because it mentions Achiachar (or Ahiqar or Ahikar), the protagonist of a book called “The Wisdom of Ahiqar”. This book tells the story of Ahiqar, a wise man who had a high position in the Assyrian court. He adopted one of his nephews, Nadan. However, Nadan turned out to be ungrateful and slandered Ahiqar before the king in order to take his place at the court. Ahiqar was sentenced to death, but the executioner saved him at the last minute, and he went into hiding. Some time later, the king grieved for Ahiqar, since he wanted to hear his wise words again. Ahiqar was informed of this and he appeared before the king again. Nadan then died in a fit of rage.
In some texts of the Book of Tobit, Tobit says that Ahiqar was the “son of my brother Anael” (chapter 1). He also worked at the royal court and spoke with the king on behalf of Tobit and Tobit could go back to Niniveh. Ahiqar is mentioned again in 11:17 as a guest of Tobit.
We could respond by saying that only certain translations, like the Greek text contains the passages about Achiachar. The first chapter of the Vulgate leaves out the story of Achiachar completely and writes “Achior” in chapter 11 in place of Achiachar.
Other objections are made from the allegedly contradictory dates in the book. One example: In the first chapter, it would appear that Tobit says that he was alive at the time when his tribe of Naphtali broke with the house of David (931 BC). That would make Tobit over 200 years old in the Assyrian captivity, which started in 734 BC. In the Vulgate, this passage is different. It reads: “Moreover, when all went to the golden calves, which Jeroboam, king of Israel, had made, he alone fled the company of all, And went to Jerusalem, to the temple of the Lord, and there adored the Lord God of Israel, offering faithfully all his first-fruits, and his tithes.” (Tob 1:5-6) It doesn’t specifically say that he was alive at the time of Jeroboam, just that he worshiped the true God in Jerusalem, when the others went along with the state religion.
Another objection: “It was Theglathphalasar III who led Nephthali (2 Kings 15:29) into captivity (734 B.C.), and not, as Tobias says (1:2), Salmanasar. Yet this reading of the Vulgate, Old Latin, and Aramaic is to be corrected by the name Enemesar of AB and Aleph [two of the Greek versions]. The latter reading would be equivalent to the Hebrew transliteration of the Assyrian kenum sar. As the appellative sar ‘king’, may precede or follow a personal name, kenum sar is sar kenum, that is Sargon (sarru-kenu II, B.C. 722). It can readily be that, twelve years after Theglath-phalasar III began the deportation of Israel out of Samaria, Sargon’s scouts completed the work and routed some of the tribe of Nephthali from their fastnesses.” (link)