Judith is, from what I understand, a purposefully historically ignorant book. It is even worse than Tobit in this area. But many have conjectured that this was done in order to draw attention off of historical places and events and draw attention to what really matters: God.
Esther, even the original Hebrew, is corrupted history too. I have a perfect God, which leads me to believe these “blemishes,” so-called, are not accidents, but rather that Yahweh used these stories (and still does) to encourage his people to resist oppression and in spite of living in a sinful world (at the time, the Babylonian world), to remain loyal only to him. Judith, Tobit, and Esther are all considered the same class of literature–a distinctive one at that. They pay little regards to history in order to clarify that their point lies in God, the Savior of his people, and that those who are faithful to him, even in bad circumstances, will prove triumphant. They are stories of encouragement, told, no doubt, to the suffering Hebrews at the time. It’s, to me, a joy to have them preserved and included in the Canon. They may not be historic realities, so to speak, but they certainly are spiritual realities, and their meaning is clear.
) could use use that beauty to our own demise or to His greater glory. I finally chose the latter and what a difference it made!
