Susanna: Apocrypha
by Jennifer A. Glancy
Jewish Women's Archive
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/susanna-apocrypha
Susanna’s story comes from Greek manuscripts of the Book of Daniel and is included in the Christian but not Jewish canon. It was written during the Hellenistic period, after Alexander the Great’s conquests. The story depicts a woman named Susanna, a wealthy Babylonian Jewish woman. Two judges conspire to entrap her, threatening to accuse of adultery if she refuses to have sex with them, but due to her strong faith, she refuses their advances and they take her to the court and accuse her. She calls out to God, and God replies to her plea, sending a man named Daniel to reveal the judges as false witnesses and save Susannah from her death sentence.
Susanna’s story comes from Greek manuscripts of the Book of Daniel and is included in the Christian but not Jewish canon. It was written during the Hellenistic period, after Alexander the Great’s conquests. The story depicts a woman named Susanna, a wealthy Babylonian Jewish woman. Two judges conspire to entrap her, threatening to accuse of adultery if she refuses to have sex with them, but due to her strong faith, she refuses their advances and they take her to the court and accuse her. She calls out to God, and God replies to her plea, sending a man named Daniel to reveal the judges as false witnesses and save Susannah from her death sentence.
The brief, self-contained story of Susanna appears in Greek but not Hebrew manuscripts of the Book of Daniel. Most modern editions of the Christian Bible include it among the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books as Daniel 13. Although readers will respond to and remember most vividly Susanna and her predicament, the story’s conclusion emphasizes Daniel’s emergence as a young figure of wisdom. On account of this, some ancient Greek versions place the Book of Susanna before Daniel 1.
The text first introduces Joakim, a wealthy man living in the Babylonian diaspora. Joakim, however, plays a minimal role in the unfolding of the story. Susanna’s introduction defines her in terms of her relationships to two men, as wife of Joakim and daughter of Hilkiah, and tells that she is beautiful and righteous and was trained “according to the law of Moses” by her parents (vv. 2–3).
Joakim’s house functions as a courthouse for the Jewish community. Two elders who serve there as judges separately develop lustful feelings toward Susanna, whom they spy walking in the garden when the house empties at midday for the community to go to their own homes for lunch (vv. 8–12). One day the two elders catch each other lingering behind in order to watch Susanna, and they conspire together to entrap her (vv. 13–14).
On a hot day Susanna decides to bathe in the garden (v. 15). She believes herself to
be alone with her maids because the elders have concealed themselves (v. 16). When Susanna sends her maids away to bring ointments for her bath (vv. 17–18), the elders reveal themselves and try to coerce her into sexual relations. They say that, unless she lies with them, they will testify that she sent her maids away in order to be with a young lover (vv. 19–21). Susanna’s dilemma is this: to submit to the elders is to disobey the law of Moses, which she has been raised to follow, but to resist the elders is to invite the death penalty for adultery (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22). She articulates her decision, “I choose not to do it; I will fall into your hands, rather than sin in the sight of the Lord” (v. 23). Susanna cries aloud, and so do the elders (v. 24). Their shouting attracts members of the household (v. 26), specifically identified as “servants,” who, when they hear the elders’ story, are “very much ashamed, for nothing like this had ever been said about Susanna” (v. 27).
The Trial of Susannah
Susanna’s trial occurs on the following day at her home, described as “the house of her husband Joakim” (v. 28). Susanna comes before the two elders and the people, accompanied by her parents, her children, and other unspecified relatives—her husband is not mentioned (vv. 29–30). The lascivious elders ask that she be unveiled so that they may continue to look at her (v. 32). Those who weep with her weep at this disgrace (v. 33), which in Theodotion’s version amounts to an unveiling of Susanna’s face. (The NRSV follows Theodotion, an alternate Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.) In the Septuagint version, Susanna is stripped naked, in accordance with ritual Jewish law (Ezek 16:37–30; Hos 2:3–10). The elders proceed with their accusations (v. 34). They claim that they saw Susanna in the garden, embracing a young lover whose strength enabled him to elude them as they attempted to detain him; they further claim that Susanna has refused to cooperate in naming the lover (vv. 36–41a). Because of the credibility of the elders in the community, the assembly believes them and condemns Susanna to death (v. 41b).
No one offers testimony on Susanna’s behalf. She, however, turns to heaven for help, crying aloud to God that she is innocent (vv. 42–43). The text records, “The Lord heard her cry” (v. 44). Just as Susanna is being taken to her death, God stirs “the holy spirit of a young lad named Daniel” (v. 45). Announcing that he cannot be part of Susanna’s execution (v. 46), he asks the assembly for the right to cross-examine the elders (vv. 47–49). Before the reassembled court, Daniel separates the two elders and questions each about the location of the lovers’ intimacies. The first elder identifies a mastic tree (v. 54) as the site of the illicit coupling, and the second elder identifies an evergreen oak (v. 58). Daniel thus reveals their deceit and the innocence of Susanna, “a daughter of Judah,” a descendant of southern Judah (v. 57). The two elders are then sentenced to the fate they intended for their victim: death (v. 62).
At the close of the tale, Susanna’s parents and husband rejoice, not because Susanna will live, but because she was “found innocent of a shameful deed” (v. 63). Susanna’s own reaction is not described. Instead, the text notes that “from that day onward Daniel had a great reputation among the people” (v. 64).
History of Susannah and Reception
Although the story has a Babylonian setting, it was written during the Hellenistic period (after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE) and reflects the concerns of that time. One of Israel’s major concerns was how to maintain its integrity living in diaspora among alien peoples. Susanna’s community does not seem economically or politically vulnerable to external pressures; rather, it seems wealthy and secure. The wickedness of the elders in the garden suggests the potential for a community accustomed to luxury to self-destruct through laxity and inattentiveness to proper boundaries. As in other Hellenistic narratives, the principal female character represents the community under attack. In the Book of Judith, for example, Judith represents the community under siege, protecting its cultic boundaries from foreign penetration. In the Book of Susanna, Susanna represents the community besieged by internal problems.
Critics have persistently labeled Susanna a tale of seduction, although feminist critics have insisted that it is really a tale of attempted rape. To call the story a tale of seduction is to visualize the events through the eyes of the elders. In fact, the story is written in a way that emphasizes this point of view; the reader is invited to consider Susanna and her beauty, to see what the elders see. The reader is not invited to look at the elders—to see what Susanna sees. Susanna remains the object of the elders’ and the reader’s vision, rather than emerging as a subject whose vision defines her own story. Such a representation of Susanna may be difficult for women readers, who can align themselves with neither the gaze of the elders nor with Susanna’s unrepresented gaze. Susanna presents a further challenge to contemporary readers. On the one hand, Susanna’s resistance to rape and adherence to the Mosaic law is laudable. On the other hand, Susanna’s understanding of her dilemma unfortunately supports the problematic notion that victims are somehow themselves guilty. For these reasons Susanna is an ambiguous heroic figure for some contemporary feminists.
Judith: Apocrypha
by Toni Craven
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/judith-apocrypha
The apocryphal book of Judith is an imaginative, highly fictionalized romance, portraying an Assyrian invasion of Israel led by a man named Holofernes. He besieges the town of Bethulia, where a widow named Judith dwells. Frustrated by the lack of faith in God shown by Bethulia’s leaders, Judith concocts a plan of her own. She takes matters into her own hands, seducing and murdering Holofernes in his tent. The death of Holofernes gives the Israelites faith and they rout the Assyrian forces, securing victory for Israel.
The Introduction to Judith
Judith, the character from whom the book takes its name, is not mentioned in the story’s first half (1:1–7:32). In the opening chapters, God’s divine sovereignty over Israel comes into direct conflict with Nebuchadnezzar’s political sovereignty over all the nations of the western world. Holofernes, commander-in-chief of the Assyrian armies of Nebuchadnezzar (which, of course, is impossible historically since Nebuchadnezzar is a Babylonian), leads a massive force in a punitive campaign against his western vassal nations—including Israel—who refused to send auxiliary forces against the Medes. The people of Israel block his retaliatory advancement against all the nations of the west at their little town of Bethulia (related to Hebrew for “virgin”), which strategically guards his route of access to Jerusalem. Despite the warning of Achior the Ammonite that the Jews cannot be conquered unless they sin against their God, Holofernes lays siege to Bethulia, cutting off its water supply. After thirty-four days, the exhausted Bethulians are ready to surrender, even though it will mean worship of Nebuchadnezzar (3:8). Uzziah, their town magistrate, urges a compromise to give God five additional days to deliver them, temporarily postponing what seems inevitable apostasy, slavery, and destruction of the Jerusalem sanctuary
In Part 2 (8:1–16:25), Judith, a pious widow in Bethulia, comes forward to challenge the five-day compromise that has imposed conditions on God’s sovereignty. Once she takes the stage, she surrenders it to no other character, figuring in every scene until the book’s end. She sends her maid to summon the town magistrates, Uzziah, Chabris, and Charmis to her house. Upbraiding them for putting themselves in the place of God (8:12), she argues that God is simply testing them, and has the power to help them at any time (8:15). She urges, “Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God; for God is not like a human being, to be threatened, or like a mere mortal, to be won over by pleading” (8:16). Judith proposes that they wait for deliverance and together call upon God who will listen, if so disposed (8:17). She insists that God will not disdain Israel because they know no other god and that capture by the Assyrians will mean the desolation of the temple as well as their way of life. Judith counsels, “Let us set an example for our kindred” (8:24).
Uzziah responds that all she has said is true and that this is not the first time her wisdom has been shown (8:28–29). But, the people were thirsty; the magistrates made an oath; and she can best help by praying for rain. On her account, the Lord will fill the cisterns and the people will no longer faint from thirst (8:31). Thus he saves himself from losing face by rescinding his foolish vow to hand over the town to the Assyrians in five days if God does not act (7:30–31), blaming the people who forced him to this oath, victimizing the victims as Jephthah did his daughter (Judg 11:35).
Judith’s Plan
Giving up the idea that she and the town officials can set an example together, Judith decides to act independently. Explaining that she will do something all the generations will remember, she tells them to meet her at the town gate that evening when she and her maid will go out. Before the five days of their compromise are gone, she pledges “the Lord will deliver Israel by my hand” (Jdt 8:33). She refuses to tell them exactly what she is about to do (8:33–34).
Once the magistrates leave, Judith prostrates herself and cries out to God, begging the strength to be like Simeon, who took vengeance against the Shechemites who violated his virgin sister, Dinah. She implores God to hear her widow’s prayer (9:4), crediting God with full knowledge of past, present, and future (9:5–6). Judith asks God to see the pride of the enemy, to send fury on their heads, to give her—a widow—a strong hand, to strike down the enemy “by the deceit” of her lips (9:10), and to “crush their arrogance by the hand of a woman” (9:10). In an androcentric setting, there is no greater dishonor for a male than to die at the hand of a female (see Judg 9:53–54; 2 Sam 11:21).
Judith is the only biblical woman who asks God to make her a good liar. In Jdt 9:10 and again in 9:13, she petitions God for “deceitful words” that will wound those who have planned cruelties against the Jerusalem Temple and their homeland. Judith is part of a larger company of women in the Bible who practice deceits that have positive national and personal consequences, including Rebekah who tricks her husband, Isaac, for the sake of their son Jacob (Genesis 27); Tamar who steals the next generation by tricking her father-in-law Judah into impregnating her (Genesis 38); the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, who lie to the king of Egypt about why they have not killed the Hebrew males at birth (Exod 1:19); Moses’s sister who offers to call a nurse for the daughter of Pharaoh, but calls the baby’s own mother, (Exod 2:7–8); the daughter of the Pharaoh who adopts and names the child Moses, in direct violation of her father’s instruction (Exod 2:10); Rahab, who preserves the lives of Joshua’s spies by lying to the king of Jericho (Joshua 2); and Jael, a Kenite, who smashes the skull of the enemy general seeking the hospitality of her tent (Judges 4–5).
When her prayer is finished (Jdt 9:14), Judith dresses beautifully, “to entice the eyes of all the men who might see her” (10:4). Taking ritually pure foods to eat (10:5), she and her maid go out that night to the camp of the enemy. She meets the Assyrian patrol and tells her first lie when she says, “I am a daughter of the Hebrews, but I am fleeing from them, for they are about to be handed over to you to be devoured. I am on my way to see Holofernes the commander of your army, to give him a true report” (10:12–13). Her words and beauty greatly excite the soldiers who choose one hundred men from their ranks to assist her to the tent of Holofernes (10:14–17).
She prostrates herself before Holofernes, who tells her his first lie, saying he has never hurt anyone who chose to serve Nebuchadnezzar (11:2; conveniently forgetting how he destroyed the shrines and sacred places of seacoast peoples after they had surrendered in 3:1–8). Equal to the encounter, and playful with her use of the address “lord,” which Holofernes hears as deference to him, but Judith means as reference to God, Judith promises to tell him nothing false (11:5). She explains she will go out into the valley and pray to God each night and God will tell her when the Bethulians have sinned by eating sacrifices, so that Holofernes can safely attack Bethulia (11:16–19). Well-pleased, Holofernes praises her beauty and wise speech, pledging, “If: you do as you have said, your God shall be my God, and you shall live in the palace of King Nebuchadnezzar” (11:23; compare Ruth 1:16).
Four uneventful days pass in the enemy camp before Holofernes sends his personal attendant Bagoas to invite Judith to a banquet in his tent (Jdt 12:10–12). Judith accepts the invitation and dresses in her best finery (12:14–15). Seeing her, Holofernes is ravished, “for he had been waiting for an opportunity to seduce her from the day he first saw her” (12:16). She drinks and eats what her maid prepares (12:18–19). He drinks “much more than he had ever drunk in any one day since he was born” (12:20).
Evening comes and all withdraw from the tent, save Judith and Holofernes who is stretched out, on his bed, dead drunk (13:2). Judith’s maid waits outside, as instructed. Judith prays twice for God’s help (13:4–5, 7), then taking Holofernes’ own sword, she strikes his neck twice and cuts off his head (13:8). She gives his head to her maid, who puts it in the food bag, and the two women go out of the camp, as was their nightly habit to pray, except this night they return to Bethulia (13:10).
Judith Victorious
The people run to welcome Judith and her maid, and Judith displays the head of Holofernes, telling how God protected her so that no sin was committed to defile or shame her (13:15–16). The people bless God (13:17), and Uzziah hails her as “blessed by the Most High God above all other women on earth” (13:18). Judith then instructs the people to wait until daybreak and then attack the Assyrians (14:1–4). When Achior the Ammonite is brought to verify that the head belongs to Holofernes, he faints (see Add Esth 15:7), blesses Judith, believes firmly in God, and is circumcised (14:6–10).
The Israelites successfully rout the Assyrians and plunder their camp. Joakim, the high priest of Jerusalem, arrives to celebrate the victory. A triumphant procession of the women and the men, with Judith in the lead singing a hymn of praise like that of Miriam and Moses in Exodus 15, makes its way to Jerusalem where all worship God for three months (16:1–20).
In the end, Judith goes back to her estate in Bethulia. “Many desired to marry her, but she gave herself to no man all the days of her life after her husband Manasseh” (16:22). At one hundred five years of age, she frees her faithful maid and distributes her property to all those who were next of kin to her husband (compare Num 27:1–11; 36:1–11; Tob 6:11–13). This dispersal of her estate supports the unexpressed fact that Judith is a childless widow.
Judith is conventional in upholding inheritance and purity rights, in prayer and fasting, in her ideas about God’s providence. She is unconventional in upbraiding the male leaders of her town for what they have said about God, though she does this within the privacy of her own home. No other woman in the Bible has another woman in charge of her estate; no other childless woman refuses to marry. On her account, “No one ever again spread terror among the Israelites during the lifetime of Judith, or for a long time after her death” (16:25).
How Judith Beheading Holofernes Became an Art History's Favorite Icon of of Female Rage
by Angelica Frey, Artsy
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-judith-beheading-holofernes-art-historys-favorite-icon-female-rage
Not only a tale of the Israelites’ heroism against their oppressors, the biblical Book of Judith also contains one of the most beloved subjects in art history: the titular heroine choreographically decapitating the Assyrian general Holofernes.
As the ancient story relates, Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar sent his general Holofernes to besiege the Jewish city of Bethulia. Judith, described as a beautiful young widow, resolves to save her people by slaying Holofernes herself. After reciting a long prayer to God, she dons her finest clothes in order to seduce him. After Holofernes has drank enough wine to become intoxicated, Judith decapitates him with his own sword, winning a decisive victory for the Israelites.
Judith is not the only biblical heroine to commit such bloody acts for the sake of her tribe. In the Book of Judges, Jael similarly kills the Canaanite general Sisera by first inviting him to her tent, serving him milk, and then driving a tent peg through his temple. In a reversal of roles, the New Testament tells of Salome asking for the head of John the Baptist to be delivered to her on a silver platter.
Female saviors like Judith and Jael indicate a biblical trope that sees the underdog—in this case the Israelites—able to vanquish the oppressor. However, unlike the other heroines who obtain what they want in a clear-cut or “domesticated” manner, Judith’s character combines piety, so-called “womanly” virtues, and strength. Those three distinctive components have made the episode of Judith beheading Holofernes a fundamental narrative for artists exploring power dynamics and gender identity.
In particular, the story provides the ideal template for the exploration of the power of female virtue, beauty, and power. Consequently, there is a rich array of artworks depicting Judith, which mainly fall into two categories: the femme forte (the strong and/or virtuous woman) and the femme fatale (the sexually dangerous woman).
Judith was an especially popular figure in the Middle Ages. Her virtuous disposition—especially evidenced in a passage that describes Judith’s celibacy following the death of her husband—aligned her with the Virgin Mary. During this time, Judith frequently featured in medieval manuscripts, often with the attributes of a saint or goddess. In the Speculum Virginum, a manuscript from 1140 intended for women entering the convent to become “A Virgin of Christ,” Judith is shown standing victorious over the vanquished Holofernes. Judith is described as possessing a “fear of the Lord,” a quality closely associated with humility. Here, Judith and Holofernes flank the personification of Humility lording overPride, with Judith looking statuesque, a virtuous warrior fighting on God’s behalf.
Judith and the Hanukkah Story
Jewish Women's Archive (no author indicated)
https://jwa.org/discover/throughtheyear/december/judith
In the Middle Ages Hanukkah festivities celebrated more than just the valiant deeds of the Maccabees. For several centuries there was another hero associated with Hanukkah: Judith. The Book of Judith promised that her praise would "never depart from the heart of those who remember the power of God," and that her actions would "go down through all generations of our descendants." While not historically connected to the story of the Maccabees, the Book of Judith shares the theme of Jewish faith and courage overcoming a larger force.
The Rabbis who included Judith in their Hanukkah narrative could not have imagined a time when the story of Judith's bravery in the face of enormous danger would cease to be part of the legacy of the Jewish people passed down from one generation to the next.
And, yet, like so many other Jewish women, Judith has been virtually written out of the Hanukkah narrative as we know it. Who was she? Why should we remember her?
In the second century B.C.E., as the powerful Assyrian army invaded the Near East, the town of Bethulia was besieged by the cruel and domineering Holofernes, the Assyrian emperor Nebuchadnezzar's top general. If Bethulia fell, the whole country would come under Assyrian control. Discouraged, the city's elders agreed to surrender if they were not rescued within a few days. Judith, a young widow and most unlikely savior, challenged them to take responsibility for the survival of their famine-stricken community. Accompanied only by her maid, she set out for the enemy camp. Smitten with her beauty, Holofernes invited her to a banquet. When he fell asleep in a drunken stupor, they were left alone in his tent. After praying for God's help, Judith took his sword and decapitated him. With the Assyrian army thrown into confusion, she urged the Israelites to launch a surprise attack; they emerged victorious.
Judith's faith and courage changed the course of history. Modern-day Judiths carry on her legacy as they dare to act, to speak, to teach, and to write themselves into the record of American Jewish history.
Why Feminists Should Eat Dairy on Hanukkah
by Vered Guttman, Moment Magazine
https://momentmag.com/why-feminists-should-eat-dairy-on-hanukkah/
The Book of Judith never made it into the Jewish canon, and the original Hebrew version, probably from the first or second century BCE, was lost. But the story itself was passed on, and Jewish scholars of the Middle Ages noted the custom of eating cheese during Hanukkah and attributed it to the story of Judith’s bravery. The Catholic Church included the story as part of the Old Testament, but the Greek and Latin versions made no mention of cheese. Instead, Judith carried fig cakes, barley, oil and bread to the enemy camp.
In her book Medieval Hanukkah Traditions: Jewish Festive Foods in their European Contexts, Susan Weingarten of Tel Aviv University writes about Megillat Yehudit (The Scroll of Judith), a 1402 version of the Judith story written in Provence by an unknown writer. In this version, Judith feeds Holofernes levivot (Hebrew for latkes) made with cheese. “She said to her maid: ‘Cook me two pancakes so I can eat at your hands.’” She salted the pancakes heavily and then mixed them into a pot with cheese. Judith then brought the salty fritters to Holofernes’s room. At the time this version was written, levivot were probably flour pancakes fried in a pan.
A similar dish—ricotta pancakes—was introduced in Rome by Jews who were expelled from Sicily in 1943. Called cassola, it is still a Roman-Jewish specialty served during Shavuot. (It was also adopted as a Christmas dish by the Catholics.) From Rome, according to Gil Marks’s Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, the cheese pancakes, now called latkes, spread to Central Europe and to the Ashkenazi communities. And although the tradition of eating cheese during Hanukkah appeared in Hasidic writings, no real culinary tradition developed around it—for a very prosaic reason. “Hanukkah is not the ideal time to eat dairy in Central Europe, so for most Ashkenazi Jews this was an expensive, hard to get option,” explains Israeli chef and food historian Shmil Holland. Rather, ingredients were determined by what was available: Until potatoes became popular in Europe in the late 18th century, latkes were actually fried dough, and during Hanukkah, the time of slaughtering geese and rendering their fat, home cooks would fry latkes in goose fat and add goose gribenes (crispy skin cracklings) into the dough.
No Jewish community took the celebration of Judith more seriously than that of Tunisia. On the seventh night of Hanukkah, which falls on the first day of the Jewish month of Tevet, Tunisian women used to celebrate the Festival of Daughters, or the First of the Month (Rosh Chodesh) of Daughters. Year-round, the first of the month is considered a women’s day of rest, but on Hanukkah even more so. In honor of Judith, women in the community would gather for the full day of cooking, singing and dancing. Some would eat cheese and drink wine. On the menu were trays of sweets, such as makroud (date-stuffed semolina cookie), yoyo (a small doughnut), debla or manicotti (deep-fried, flower-shaped dough soaked in sugar syrup). In some communities, men engaged to marry would send their fiancées gifts that day. Yael Baruch, a Tel Aviv publisher of Tunisian descent who wrote about the women’s holiday in her doctoral thesis, notes that in some Tunisian communities, the men would buy dairy food, including cheese pastries and couscous in milk, and serve it to the women.