Apocrypha blogging: Judith and Wisdom

Judith is another story; this one sometimes gets called the world's first historical novel, since it was written about just-post-Captivity times, but the actual time of writing about four centuries later. It's not all that good; it's a war story about how a foxy Jewish widow wins a military victory by infiltrating the enemy camp and beheading the enemy general.

Fans of Lois McMaster Bujold will be amused to learn that Judith brings back Holofernes's head in a canvas bag, and displays it to the council of war in a scene extremely reminiscent of Cordelia's "shopping trip".

Also, the translator seemed to be uncomfortable with the modern English possessive ending "'s" when attached to proper names -- at least, all the places where I would have expected to see "Holofernes's X" or "Holofernes' X", have "Holofernes his X". Maybe this reluctance is just for names ending in s.

The Book of Wisdom is another example of "Wisdom literature", very similar in feel to Proverbs. I found it tedious. Now I'm in the middle of The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, which seems to be more of it. (No relation to the more famous Jesus. "Jesus" is apparently Greek for Joshua, and there have been lots of Jesuses in the Apocrypha.)