Note 392 — Chapter II · The Book of Tobit

Origen, Ep. ad Afric., xiii., says that the book was not written in Hebrew; Jerome, Praef. in Vers. libri Tob., says he translated it from the Chaldee (i.e. Aramaic), but this was itself a translation, for while the Greek puts the narrative from i. 3-iii. 6 in the first person and from here onwards continues in the third person, Jerome’s Aramaic (which is in all probability represented by the manuscript edited by Neubauer, The Book of Tobit, A Chaldee text ... 1878) makes the whole narrative run in the third person; but if the original form of the story was written in the third person throughout, it is unthinkable that in a later form the first person would have been substituted in i. 3-iii. 6 alone. On the other hand, it would be quite natural for the original writer to commence his story in the first person and later to fall into the third person, for this latter is the simpler and easier form of narration. The Hebrew Versions are of quite late date, and obviously translations; see Neubauer, Op. cit., and Gaster, Two Unknown Hebrew Versions of the Tobit Legend (1897).