The Apocrypha: is it scripture?

[phoenix3212]

Wrong historical facts:
Judith 1:5, “Now in the twelfth year of his reign, Nabuchodonosor, king of the Assyrians, who reigned in Ninive the great city, fought against Arphaxad and overcame him.”

Baruch 6:2, "And when you are come into Babylon, you shall be there many years, and for a long time, even to seven generations: and after that I will bring you away from thence with peace."

Should we get rid of Genesis then? It seems to have an interesting account of creation, to say the least. Not to mention a huge flood, and a tower bigger than a skyscraper, amongst other things

 

[Morwenna]

Jesus made mud from dirt & His spit, and cured the blind man with it. Was that magic? Are we to take that out of our Bibles as a superstition? And what about the angel who troubled the waters of Bethesda? Shall we chop that, as “magic”??
You start editing the Scriptures according to a preconception of what they mean, & you will end up with Thomas Jefferson’s “Bible”, from which he had excised every single miracle, leaving it as a book of moral teachings with no God behind them.

Ecclesiastes records that men are no different than animals: All die, and that is an end to them. Should we deny the existence of Heaven?

So you believe that there is no point to praying for the dead? That is very sad, but you are simply** not allowed** to determine that whatever Scripture you don’t like, is therefore not part of the canon. That was what Luther did: hence, my offer to fight him over it!

Why assume that Nabuchonodosor is Nebuchadnezzar? Am I to rewrite the list of US presidents, dropping John Quincy Adams, because we all ready have a John Adams; this is a mistake!?

You are making assumptions in advance of evidence, laddie. You begin witht the idea that Catholics are always wrong, and from there, you pick apart the Deuterocanon, to prove the conclusion you all ready had come to, before you ever read it!!

You’re cheating, yean; you’re using one standard for yourself, & another for the rest of us.
What you believe, you find a verse to support, and that you don’t believe, you censor Holy Writ, to get rid of anything that supports your opponent.
Again, that’s cheating. No one will hit you up side of the head (not even with a nice fresh halibut) & forse you to convert–witness me!!
But you can’t ravage the Scriptures like that. Its not right, its not fair, and–worst of all–Its a slap in the Face of the God Who inspired the Bible…including the uncomfortable bits.

Oh my gosh, Zooey … :knight2: :clapping::tiphat::curtsey::flowers:

Well done!

 

[Christalone]

As am I you are entitled to your opinion.

Jesus made mud from dirt & His spit, and cured the blind man with it. Was that magic? Are we to take that out of our Bibles as a superstition? And what about the angel who troubled the waters of Bethesda? Shall we chop that, as “magic”??
You start editing the Scriptures according to a preconception of what they mean, & you will end up with Thomas Jefferson’s “Bible”, from which he had excised every single miracle, leaving it as a book of moral teachings with no God behind them.

Ecclesiastes records that men are no different than animals: All die, and that is an end to them. Should we deny the existence of Heaven?

So you believe that there is no point to praying for the dead? That is very sad, but you are simply** not allowed** to determine that whatever Scripture you don’t like, is therefore not part of the canon. That was what Luther did: hence, my offer to fight him over it!

Why assume that Nabuchonodosor is Nebuchadnezzar? Am I to rewrite the list of US presidents, dropping John Quincy Adams, because we all ready have a John Adams; this is a mistake!?

 

[Zooey]

Quite the contrary, If I am slapping
God then I will answer to him but I do not have to answer to a faith that claims authority over another.

But **you’re **claiming authority for yourself!!
What next?? Drop the 10 Commandments in favor of the “5 or 6 Excellent Suggestions”?? I mean, that would be so easy…why not?? Where does it stop?
The Deuterocanon was in everybody’s Bibles until the 19th Century. (Yes, nineteenth; not a typo).
As I say: You are free to interpret as you please; this is America, after all. But don’t assume that just because you think something is true, that you are entitled to do a hatchet job on God’s written words.:nope::nope::nope:

 

[BrianH]

Jesus disagrees.

The Septuagint, which contains the deuterocanonical books, was in common use by the Jews of Jesus’ time.

1. The earliest copies of the LXX/Septuagint are 200 years after the time of Christ.
2. The earliest copies of the LXX do not contain the same DC books.
3. There is no list, no proof what the LXX contained at the time of Jesus. There are no contemporary writers who can attest either way. The general consensus from everything I have read on the subject is that it was in “flux”. Could some of the DC have been in the LXX then? Yes. Do we know? Nope.

 

[adstrinity]

When we look into the apocrypha itself, we find numerous problems. For example, we see it advocating magic where the smoke of a fish heart on a fire drives away devils.

Magic:
Tobias 6:5-7, “Then the angel said to him: Take out the entrails of this fish, and lay up his heart, and his gall, and his liver for thee: for these are necessary for useful medicines. 6 And when he had done so, he roasted the flesh thereof, and they took it with them in the way: the rest they salted as much as might serve them, till they came to Rages the city of the Medes. 7 Then Tobias asked the angel, and said to him: I beseech thee, brother Azarias, tell me what remedies are these things good for, which thou hast bid me keep of the fish? 8 And the angel, answering, said to him: If thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof driveth away all kind of devils, either from man or from woman, so that they come no more to them.”

Is it true that the smoke from a fish’s heart, when burned, drives away evil spirits? Of course not. Such a superstitious teaching has no place in the word of God.
The Apocrypha also teaches that forgiveness of sins is by human effort.

You’re missing the point…and not finishing the story Like when the one guy was told to raise his arms and the army would be winning (and he had to have others hold his arms up), or when God told Abram to sacrifice his son, or when Moses was told to throw down his staff: these are the orders of God Almighty Himself. If you did it, you were prosperous.

On the flip side, we have Cain and Abel and Sampson; the one son didn’t give his best to God and was it magic that Sampson’s strength was in his hair? Is it something that was told to him and after his hair was cut, he felt defeated and WASN’T strong anymore (save that last time) or, was it because he lost favour for disobeying God and was given strength only when he repented? These men disobeyed God and as such, didn’t gain His immediate favour.

Besides, the book of Tobit, while a part of cannon and divinely inspired, may be fictional.

It is from CARM

Oh. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Incidentally, the Catholic Church is older than the Bible and decided in the 400s what books were Biblical.

The Catholics were using these books in the 60s (THE 60s, like, half the NT hadn’t been written yet, 60s). It wasn’t until the Council of Jamnia in the 90s that the Jews decided to discard them as being non-cannonacal. Unfortunatly, God’s favour, as of the veil in twain, didn’t rest on the Jews and they no longer had His Spirit to guide them from error. That now rested on His Church, who would be preserved from declairing error.

 

[SyCarl]

Incidentally, the Catholic Church is older than the Bible and decided in the 400s what books were Biblical.

You would have thought that Pope Gregory the Great would have known this when he said 1 Maccabees was not part of the canon.

With reference to which particular we are not acting irregularly, if from the books, though not Canonical, yet brought out for the edifying of the Church, we bring forward testimony. Thus Eleazar in the battle smote and brought down an elephant, but fell under the very beast that he killed.

Gregory the Great-(An Exposition on the Book of the Blessed Job, Volume 2, Part 3, Book 19, Paragraph 34)
lectionarycentral.com/GregoryMoralia/Book19.html

 

[ababbidg]

The Book of Judith, while it does seem to have an error calling Nebuchanezzar(sp?) the king of the assyrians, does not make it not inspired. The bible is not a history text book, and stories such as this could be written to inspire confidence or to teach, much like a parable.

The Babylonians and the Assyrians were both enemies of the Israelites. For the sake of the story, the author of Judith called Nebuchanezzar the king of the Assyrians to symbolize the combined forces of both nations attacking the Israelites. In the book of Judith, everytime Nebuchanezzar is mentioned, it always says king of the Assyrians right after his name. This constant stressing of him being king of the Assyrians is meant to show this combining of the forces against Israel.

Parables or stories like this do not need to be historically and scientifically accurate. Even Jesus’ parables were not accurate in terms of science. For example, Jesus says the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds and grows into the largest of plants. But there are seeds smaller than mustard seeds and there are plants larger than mustard plants or trees or whatever mustard seeds grow into. This does not make the book of Matthew not inspired just because it has a scientific error.

 

[Roman_Catholic_1]

Jesus’ references the Old Testament: from Abel to Zechariah

Jesus referenced the Jewish Old Testament canon from the beginning to the end and did not include the apocryphal in his reference. “From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation,’” (Luke 11:51).

"The traditional Jewish canon was divided into three sections (Law, Prophets, Writings), and an unusual feature of the last section was the listing of Chronicles out of historical order, placing it after Ezra-Nehemiah and making it the last book of the canon. In light of this, the words of Jesus in Luke 11:50-51 reflect the settled character of the Jewish canon (with its peculiar order) already in his day. Christ uses the expression "from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah," which appears troublesome since Zechariah was not chronologically the last martyr mentioned in the Bible (cf. Jer. 26:20-23). However, Zechariah is the last martyr we read of in the Old Testament according to Jewish canonical order (cf. II Chron. 24:20-22), which was apparently recognized by Jesus and his hearers."1

This means that the same Old Testament canon, according to the Jewish tradition, is arranged differently than how we have it in the Protestant Bible today. This was the arrangement that Jesus was referring to when he referenced Abel and Zechariah, the first and last people to have their blood shed – as listed in the Old Testament Jewish canon. Obviously, Jesus knew of the apocryphal and was not including it in his reference.
Jesus’ references the Old Testament: The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms

Catholics sometimes respond by saying that the Old Testament is referred to in three parts: the law, the prophets, and the writings. It is these writings that are sometimes said to include the apocrypha. But this designation is not found in the Bible. On the contrary, Jesus referenced the Old Testament and designated its three parts as the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, not as the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

"Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled," (Luke 24:44).

So we see that the designation offered by the Roman Catholics is not the same designation found in the Bible and their argument is invalid as their argument is incorrect. Nevertheless, even if it did say “writings” it would not include the apocryphal for the above mentioned reasons.
Church Fathers

Did the Church fathers recognized the apocrypha as being Scripture? Roman Catholics strongly appeal to Church history but we don’t find a unanimous consensus on the apocrypha. Jerome (340-420) who translated the Latin Vulgate which is used by the RC church, rejected the Apocrypha since he believed that the Jews recognized and established the proper canon of the Old Testament. Remember, the Christian Church built upon that recognition. Also, Josephus the famous Jewish historian of the first century never mentioned the apocrypha as being part of the canon either. In addition, "Early church fathers like Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, and the great Roman Catholic translator Jerome spoke out against the Apocrypha."2 So, we should not conclude that the Church fathers unanimously affirmed the apocryphal. They didn’t.

I thought I had seen all of this before:

CARM

God bless

 

[adstrinity]

You would have thought that Pope Gregory the Great would have known this when he said 1 Maccabees was not part of the canon.

Source?

 

[SyCarl]

Source?

Given in the quote and link to his Exposition on Job

 

[SalomeBintullah]

But if the Apocrypha is a Scripture, then it should not have any errors. But since it does have errors, as will be demonstrated below, this puts into question whether or not the Roman Catholic Church has properly used its self-proclaimed position as the teaching authority of the Christian Church. If it can error in such an important manner as what is Scripture, can it be trusted to properly teach the Christian Church? The following references can be verified at newadvent.org/bible.

Okay, I’ll bite.

Problems in the Apocrypha

When we look into the apocrypha itself, we find numerous problems. For example, we see it advocating magic where the smoke of a fish heart on a fire drives away devils.

Magic:  
Tobias 6:5-7, "Then the angel said to him: Take out the entrails of this fish, and lay up his heart, and his gall, and his liver for thee: for these are necessary for useful medicines. 6 And when he had done so, he roasted the flesh thereof, and they took it with them in the way: the rest they salted as much as might serve them, till they came to Rages the city of the Medes. 7 Then Tobias asked the angel, and said to him: I beseech thee, brother Azarias, tell me what remedies are these things good for, which thou hast bid me keep of the fish? 8 And the angel, answering, said to him: If thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof driveth away all kind of devils, either from man or from woman, so that they come no more to them."

Is it true that the smoke from a fish’s heart, when burned, drives away evil spirits? Of course not. Such a superstitious teaching has no place in the word of God.

Its heart, &c. The liver, (ver. 19.) God was pleased to give to these things a virtue against those proud spirits, to make them, who affected to be like the Most High, subject to such mean corporeal creatures, as instruments of his power. (Challoner) — God sometimes makes use of things as remedies which have, naturally, a different effect; as when Christ put clay on the eyes of the blind man, John ix. The things which the angel ordered were salutary, by God’s appointment. (Worthington) — They could not act directly upon a spirit: but they might upon the person troubled by one, as Saul was relieved by music. (Calmet, Diss.) — The smoke was a sign of the devil’s expulsion, and of the efficacy of prayer; or rather, God subjected the proud spirits to such weak elements. (Serarius, q. 3.) (Menochius) — Greek, "and he said to him, respecting the heart and liver, if any demon or wicked spirit be troublesome, make these smoke before a man or a woman, and the person shall be troubled no longer. (source; emphasis added)

Also:
Far from presenting an exercise in magic, Tobit presents the ancient Christological symbol of the fish (who is, in Tobit 6:3, literally a catcher of men) salted and roasted on coals (as Christ was scourged and roasted in the sun on the cross) in order to destroy the power of a murderous demon and drive him away from a virginal bride. The fish is used to heal a blind man (cf. John 9) by making things like scales fall from his eyes (cf. Acts 10:18). (source)

 

[SalomeBintullah]

The Apocrypha also teaches that forgiveness of sins is by human effort.

Salvation by works:  
Tobias 4:11, "For alms deliver from all sin, and from death, and will not suffer the soul to go into darkness."  
Tobias 12:9, "For alms delivereth from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting."

We know from Scripture that alms (money or food, given to the poor or needy as charity) does not purge our sins. The blood of Christ is what cleanses us, not money or food given to poor people. “but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin,” (1 John 1:7).

Both of these quotes come from longer speeches exhorting the listener to follow God’s commandments. Also, I’m curious to know what translation you’re using, because mine (RSV-CE) leaves the reader with a somewhat different impression:

Tobit 4:5-11, “Remember the Lord our God all your days, my son, and refuse to sin or transgress his commandments. Live uprightly all the days of your life, and do not walk in the ways of wrongdoing. For if you do what is true, your ways will prosper through your deeds. Give alms from your possessions to all who live uprightly, and do not let your eye begrudge the gift when you make it. Do not turn your face away from any poor man, and the face of God will not be turned away from you. If you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion; if few, do not be afraid to give according to the little you have. So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity. For charity delivers from death and keeps you from entering the darkness; and all who practice it charity is an excellent offering in the presence in the presence of the Most High.”

Tobit 12:7-10, “It is good to guard the secret of a king, but but gloriously to reveal the works of God. Do good, and evil will not overtake you. Prayer is good when accompanied by fasting, almsgiving, and righteousness. A little with righteousness is better than much with wrongdoing. It is better to give alms than to treasure up gold. For almsgiving delivers from death, and it will purge away every sin. Those who perform deeds of charity and of righteousness will have fullness of life; but those who commit sin are the enemies of their own lives.”

Context does wonderful things for scripture verses. As you can see once you read Tobit 4:11 and 12:9 in context, they are not about “working your way into heaven.” They are about living your faith in God through loving acts of charity to others. Good deeds are contrasted with bad deeds. Good deeds are inseparable from faith in God. Interestingly, they also sound rather similar to Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

 

[SalomeBintullah]

Money as an offering for the sins of the dead:
2 Macabees 12:43, “And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection.”

Can anyone truly except that money isn’t offering for the sins of dead people? Such a superstitious and unbiblical concept has no place in Scripture.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by this. Are you asserting that Judah Maccabee was attempting to buy the salvation of these men? He was paying for a sin offering on their behalf because their bodies were found with charms on them. This sin offering released them from She’ol. I can see that this is going to head in the direction of purgatory and indulgences, so here’s CA’s Primer on Indulgences. Also, just so you know, 1 and 2 Maccabees are historical documents. Judah Maccabee really existed, and he really did offer a collection for a sin offering for the dead. Just checking to make sure we’re on the same page.

And it’s only unbiblical if Maccabees isn’t scripture. Which you have yet to prove.

 

[adstrinity]

Given in the quote and link to his Exposition on Job

I didn’t see anything in Paragraph 34 that mentions 1 Macc.

 

[SalomeBintullah]

Wrong historical facts:
Judith 1:5, “Now in the twelfth year of his reign, Nabuchodonosor, king of the Assyrians, who reigned in Ninive the great city, fought against Arphaxad and overcame him.”

Baruch 6:2, "And when you are come into Babylon, you shall be there many years, and for a long time, even to seven generations: and after that I will bring you away from thence with peace."

The book of Judith incorrectly says that Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the Assyrians when he was the king of the Babylonians.1

Baruch 6:2 says the Jews would serve in Babylon for seven generations where Jer. 25:11 says it was for 70 years. “And this whole land shall be a desolation and a horror, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”

As for the Book of Judith, Mark Shea has this to say:
Let’s take the problem of alleged “factual errors” first. The Church teaches that to have an authentic understanding of Scripture we must have in mind what the author was actually trying to assert, the way he was trying to assert it, and what is incidental to that assertion.

For example, when Jesus begins the parable of the Prodigal Son saying, “There was once a man with two sons,” He is not shown to be a bad historian when it is proven that the man with two sons He describes didn’t actually exist. So too, when the prophet Nathan tells King David the story of the “rich man” who stole a “poor man’s” ewe lamb and slaughtered it, Nathan is not a liar if he cannot produce the carcass or identify the two men in his story. In strict fact, there was no ewe lamb, no theft, and no rich and poor men. These details were used in a metaphor to rebuke King David for his adultery with Bathsheba. We know what Nathan was trying to say and the way he was trying to say it. Likewise, when the Gospels say the women came to the tomb at sunrise, there is no scientific error here. This is not the assertion of the Ptolemiac theory that the sun revolves around the earth. These and other examples which could be given are not “errors” because they’re not truth claims about astronomy or historical events.

Similarly, both Judith and Tobit have a number of historical and geographical errors, not because they’re presenting bad history and erroneous geography, but because they’re first-rate pious stories that don’t pretend to be remotely interested with teaching history or geography, any more than the Resurrection narratives in the Gospels are interested in astronomy. Indeed, the author of Tobit goes out of his way to make clear that his hero is fictional. He makes Tobit the uncle of Ahiqar, a figure in ancient Semitic folklore like “Jack the Giant Killer” or “Aladdin.” Just as one wouldn’t wave a medieval history textbook around and complain about a tale that begins “once upon a time when King Arthur ruled the land,” so Catholics are not reading Tobit and Judith to get a history lesson. (source)

As for Baruch 6:2, it’s actually Baruch 6:3 that mentions seven generations. Baruch 6:1-3, “A copy of the letter which Jeremiah sent to those who were to be taken to Babylon as captives by the king of the Babylonians, to give them the message which God had commanded him. 'Because of the sins which you have committed before God, you will be taken to Babylon as captives by Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonians. Therefore when you have come to Babylon you will remain there for many years, for a long time, up to seven generations; after that I will bring you away from there in peace.”

Personally, I find no contradiction between “70 years” and “up to seven generations.” Baruch was originally written in Hebrew. The Hebrew word that is often translated as “generations” literally means “spans” or “lengths of time.” Perhaps in this case “spans” meant decades and not generations. 7x10=70

Conclusion

Obviously the apocrypha has serious problems. From magic, to salvation by works, to money as an offering for the sins of the dead, and blatant incorrect historical facts, it is full of false and unbiblical teachings. It isn’t inspired of God. Likewise, neither is the Roman Catholic Church, which has stated the apocrypha is inspired. This shows the Roman Catholic Church is not the means by which God is communicating his truth to his people, that the Magisterium has erred greatly, and that it is infested with man’s false tradition, rather than God’s absolute truth.

 

[BrianH]

You’re missing the point…and not finishing the story Like when the one guy was told to raise his arms and the army would be winning (and he had to have others hold his arms up), or when God told Abram to sacrifice his son, or when Moses was told to throw down his staff: these are the orders of God Almighty Himself. If you did it, you were prosperous.

On the flip side, we have Cain and Abel and Sampson; the one son didn’t give his best to God and was it magic that Sampson’s strength was in his hair? Is it something that was told to him and after his hair was cut, he felt defeated and WASN’T strong anymore (save that last time) or, was it because he lost favour for disobeying God and was given strength only when he repented? These men disobeyed God and as such, didn’t gain His immediate favour.

Besides, the book of Tobit, while a part of cannon and divinely inspired, may be fictional.

Oh. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Incidentally, the Catholic Church is older than the Bible and decided in the 400s what books were Biblical.

The Catholics were using these books in the 60s (THE 60s, like, half the NT hadn’t been written yet, 60s). It wasn’t until the Council of Jamnia in the 90s that the Jews decided to discard them as being non-cannonacal. Unfortunatly, God’s favour, as of the veil in twain, didn’t rest on the Jews and they no longer had His Spirit to guide them from error. That now rested on His Church, who would be preserved from declairing error.

In regards to your comment, that while popular on this site, is not historically accurate…from a Catholic source as well
catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0409fea4.asp

 

[SyCarl]

I didn’t see anything in Paragraph 34 that mentions 1 Macc.

While he does not refer to it by name, he does refer to Eleazar killing and being killed by an elephant. This comes from 1 Maccabees 6:43-46

And Eleazar, the son of Saura, saw one of the beasts harnessed with the king’s harness: and it was higher than the other beasts; and it seemed to him that the king was on it: And he exposed himself to deliver his people, and to get himself an everlasting name. And he ran up to it boldly in the midst of the legion, killing on the right hand, and on the left, and they fell by him on this side and that side. And he went between the feet of the elephant, and put himself under it: and slew it, and it fell to the ground upon him, and he died there.
(1 Maccabees 6:43-46 DRB)

If he was not referring to 1 Maccabees, why would he refer to a book he considered non canonical when he could have referred to 1 Maccabees?

 

[adstrinity]

In regards to your comment, that while popular on this site, is not historically accurate…from a Catholic source as well
catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0409fea4.asp

Huh. The Council of Jamnia didn’t happen. Thank you for this link. …Of course, this only proves the Catholic point that much more… Good to know for future knowledge!

 

[SyCarl]

As for the Book of Judith, Mark Shea has this to say:
Let’s take the problem of alleged “factual errors” first. The Church teaches that to have an authentic understanding of Scripture we must have in mind what the author was actually trying to assert, the way he was trying to assert it, and what is incidental to that assertion.

For example, when Jesus begins the parable of the Prodigal Son saying, “There was once a man with two sons,” He is not shown to be a bad historian when it is proven that the man with two sons He describes didn’t actually exist. So too, when the prophet Nathan tells King David the story of the “rich man” who stole a “poor man’s” ewe lamb and slaughtered it, Nathan is not a liar if he cannot produce the carcass or identify the two men in his story. In strict fact, there was no ewe lamb, no theft, and no rich and poor men. These details were used in a metaphor to rebuke King David for his adultery with Bathsheba. We know what Nathan was trying to say and the way he was trying to say it. Likewise, when the Gospels say the women came to the tomb at sunrise, there is no scientific error here. This is not the assertion of the Ptolemiac theory that the sun revolves around the earth. These and other examples which could be given are not “errors” because they’re not truth claims about astronomy or historical events.

Similarly, both Judith and Tobit have a number of historical and geographical errors, not because they’re presenting bad history and erroneous geography, but because they’re first-rate pious stories that don’t pretend to be remotely interested with teaching history or geography, any more than the Resurrection narratives in the Gospels are interested in astronomy. Indeed, the author of Tobit goes out of his way to make clear that his hero is fictional. He makes Tobit the uncle of Ahiqar, a figure in ancient Semitic folklore like “Jack the Giant Killer” or “Aladdin.” Just as one wouldn’t wave a medieval history textbook around and complain about a tale that begins “once upon a time when King Arthur ruled the land,” so Catholics are not reading Tobit and Judith to get a history lesson. (source)

This seems to be a fairly new approach taken by Catholic apologists to deal with the problems in Tobit and Judith. However the Catholic Encyclopedia disagrees with suggesting they are not historical. For example on Tobit it says:

Until recently there never was question among Catholics in regard to the historicity of Tobias. It was among the historical books of the Old Testament, the Fathers had always referred to both elder and younger Tobias and to the other personages of the narratives as to facts and not to fancies…With these and a few other exceptions, Catholic exegetes are unanimous in clearly defending the historicity of Tobias…This almost unanimity among Catholic exegetes is quite in keeping with the decision of the Biblical Commission (23 June, 1905). By this Decree Catholics are forbidden to hold that a book of the Holy Writ, which has generally been looked upon as historical, is either entirely or in part not history properly so called, unless it be proven by solid arguments that the sacred writer did not wish to write history; and the solidity of the arguments against the historicity of an historical book of the Bible we are not to admit either readily or rashly. Now the arguments against the historical worth of Tobias are not at all solid; they are mere conjectures, which it would be most rash to admit.

newadvent.org/cathen/14749c.htm