Book of Tobit

Definition and Meaning

The Book of Tobit is a Jewish writing set during the Assyrian exile of the eighth century BC. It consists of fourteen chapters. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church accept the book as part of the Old Testament; the Catholic Church calls such books "deuterocanonical." Most Protestants classify it among the Apocrypha, outside the canon (the books the church recognizes as the standard of faith).

Biblical and Historical Background

Tobit, of the tribe of Naphtali, is a devout Jew carried off to Nineveh under the Assyrian king Shalmaneser. While burying his dead kinsmen and helping the poor, he loses his sight. Tobit sends his son Tobias to Media to recover money he had left in trust, and the angel Raphael, in human form, accompanies Tobias on the journey. Tobias marries his kinswoman Sarah, who has lost seven bridegrooms to a demon. He drives out the demon with the heart and liver of a fish, and upon returning home he heals his father's eyes with the fish's gall.

The book emphasizes practices of piety such as prayer, almsgiving, and burial of the dead. It also contains a negative form of the Golden Rule: "Do that to no man which thou hatest" (Tobit 4:15). The book is thought to have been written in the third or second century BC. It was transmitted in the Greek Septuagint, and fragments of Aramaic and Hebrew manuscripts have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The church traditions understand the book as follows:

• Catholic: The Council of Trent confirmed it as canonical in 1546.
• Lutheran: Martin Luther placed the Apocrypha in an appendix to his German Bible, presenting them as books not equal to Holy Scripture but profitable to read.
• Anglican: Article 6 of the Thirty-Nine Articles states that the Apocrypha are read for example of life and instruction of manners but are not applied to establish any doctrine.
• Presbyterian and other Reformed traditions: Chapter 1, section 3 of the Westminster Confession of Faith declares that the Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, have no authority in the church.

The two sides also appeal to different grounds regarding the book's canonical status. Protestants point out that the book was not included in the Hebrew Bible. They also hold that a verse stating that almsgiving purges away sin (Tobit 12:9) is inconsistent with the doctrine of justification. Catholics point to the early church's use of the Septuagint and to the book's continuous reading within the church's tradition.

Practice in the Korean Church

The New Korean Revised Version, the translation chiefly used by Korean Protestants, does not include Tobit. Consequently, the book is rarely addressed in the worship services or Bible studies of Presbyterian, Methodist, Holiness, Baptist, or Full Gospel churches.

The Common Translation Bible, published in 1977, is available in an edition that includes the Apocrypha, and the Anglican Church of Korea uses this translation in worship. The Catholic Church includes Tobit in Seonggyeong (The Holy Bible), published in 2005 by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea. In the Catholic nuptial Mass, the prayer of Tobias and Sarah (Tobit 8) is sometimes used as one of the readings.