Book of Job
probably dependent upon Tobit
Part Three:
Story of Ahikar would not have pre-dated Tobit
by
Damien F. Mackey
“… acute criticisms of Meissner
… Lidzbarski … Dillon … and Harris … have proved the tale [of Ahikar] to be
older than the book of Tobit, and have demonstrated that the latter is
dependent upon it”.
George A.
Barton
Due to its inherent gross
inaccuracy, the conventional system of chronology invariably leads its
advocates towards topsy-turvy conclusions about who influenced whom.
In this series I have concluded
differently about, for instance, the Book of Job, considered by some to be “the
oldest book in the Bible”, if not in the whole world – my conclusion being that,
not only is Job by no means the oldest book, but the Book of Tobit that Job is
thought to have influenced was probably, instead, an influence for the Book of
Job:
Book of Job probably dependent upon Tobit
Book of Job probably dependent upon Tobit. Part Two: Job not ‘oldest book of the Bible’
Now if the celebrated sage of the
neo-Assyrian kings, Ahikar, was in fact Tobit’s nephew, as according to Tobit
1:22, then his uncle must have, of necessity, pre-dated Ahikar. That biological
necessity would make it most unlikely that any history of Ahikar would, in
turn, pre-date (and influence) the Book of Tobit.
Even less likely would so
fanciful a tale as the Story of Ahikar, with its ‘castles in the air’ type
concepts, have been the influencing factor for the Book of Tobit.
Yet the conventional commentators
inevitably find a way to ‘make’ this happen.
And so George A. Barton, back in
1900, proposed the unlikely argument for the Story of Ahikar to have influenced
Tobit, and also the Book of Daniel (which is at least more chronologically reasonable): https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/369377
THE STORY OF AḤIĶAR AND THE BOOK OF DANIEL.
Within the last few years a story
long known in the Arabian Thousand and
One Nights has turned out to be of unexpected interest to the biblical
student. In 1880 Georg Hoffmann pointed out the identity of Achiacharus of
Tobit I:21 sqq.; 11:18, and 14:10,
with a legendary sage, Aḥiḳar,
who figured in a romance extant in certain Syriac MSS. as a vizier of Sennacherib.
Since that time, through the labors
of Jagić,
Donybeare, Salhani, Mrs. Lewis, and J. Rendel Harris, versions of the tale as
preserved in Slavonic, Armenian, Arabic, and Syriac have been placed within our
reach, while the acute criticisms of Meissner,2 Lidzbarski,3 Dillon,4 and Harris5
have proved the tale to be older than the book of Tobit, and have demonstrated that
the latter is dependent upon it. It is to Dillon and Harris that we are especially
indebted for this demonstration. To the latter we are also indebted for having,
with the aid of the other editors mentioned above, placed within our reach, in
his volume on Aḥiḳar,
the various versions of the story. The same scholar has also pointed out that
if the book is older than Tobit it is also older than Daniel, and has
collected, as noted below, a number of expressions common to the two works.
The substance of the tale is as
follows:
Aḥiḳar, a vizier of Sennacherib, was possessed of wealth,
wisdom, popularity, and power, but had no son. After vainly praying for one he
was directed to adopt his nephew Nadan and to find in him the fulfilment of his
prayers. This he did rearing the child tenderly and instructing him in wisdom, the
precepts of which are recounted to us at length. Nadan proved to be wilful and
ungrateful. At length, when Aḥiḳar contemplated supplanting him by his younger brother,
he forged treasonable letters in Aḥiḳar’s handwriting, pretended to the king that he found
them, and procured Aḥiḳar's
condemnation to death. On a previous occasion Aḥiḳar had saved from the wrath of Sennacherib the very
person who was now directed to cut off his head. An appeal to this man’s
gratitude persuaded him to slay a slave in Aḥiḳar stead, while the latter was incarcerated in a
dungeon under his own house, where he was tormented by the audible evidences of
abuse of his property, his slaves, and his wife in which Nadan indulged.
Meantime the king of Egypt, hearing of
Aḥiḳar's death, sent to Sennacherib a series of absurd and
impossible demands, such as eastern story-tellers attribute to powerful
sovereigns, accompanied by veiled threats of detriment to Assyria in case his
demands were not fulfilled. No one was able to tell Sennacherib what to do, and
in his extremity the king was glad to reward Aḥiḳar's executioner for not putting him to death. Aḥiḳar was then brought forth from his dungeon, with
"the color of his face changed, his hair matted like a wild beast, and his
nails like the claws of an eagle." When he had recuperated Aḥiḳar went to Egypt, by his wisdom successfully met or
baffled the king of Egypt in his demands, and thus delivered Assyria. When he
returned to Assyria with enhanced reputation, Nadan was delivered to him for
punishment; he flogged him, imprisoned him in the very dungeon where Aḥiḳar had himself been entombed, gave him some more
instruction, and when the final punishment was ready for him Nadan swelled up
and burst asunder, thus taking himself out of the way.
The story has been distorted in one
way or another in each of the versions of it, so that a comparison of them all
is necessary in order to bind together its different strands again. The publication
of the different versions side by side in a convenient volume by Dr. Harris
happily makes this possible. If now the story is older than Tobit (a point demonstrated
by Dillon and Harris), it is also older than Daniel, and the inquiry as to whether
the latter book may not be in some respects dependent upon Aḥiḳar becomes a legitimate one. ….
This ridiculous -
though highly entertaining - account of the truly historical sage, Ahikar, is
just a garbled and fanciful version of the life of that great man, with some distorted
(“The story has been distorted”, see above) items from Daniel and
Nebuchednezzar thrown in for good measure.
For a proper
account of the life and changes of fortune of Ahikar, see e.g. my article:
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith
It is astounding - but also monotonously predictable - that commentators
can delude themselves into thinking that a fairy tale such as the Story of
Ahikar could have influenced a biblical book, Tobit, or Daniel, grounded in a
real historical era.
