Judith traditions from antiquity to modern times

Includes bibliographical references.

The story of Judith, though set in the sixth century BCE, was composed in the second century BCE. While it was never incorporated into the canon of the Hebrew Bible, it was received into the Christian Vulgate. As this volume demonstrates, the figure of Judith - the widow who succeeds in killing the enemy commander Holofernes in his sleep, thereby saving her besieged city of Bethulia - has continued to captivate the imagination of posterity. The contributions within this collection examine Christian interpretations of the narrative in both texts and images from the Latin Middle Ages through to the sixteenth century, alongside the medieval, modern, and contemporary Hebrew traditions surrounding Judith.

Further chapters address early modern Arabic translations of the Book of Judith, the Greek sources of the text, and Judith's presence in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Western music. The volume originates from papers presented at a summer school on Judith as an interreligious figure, held in Pavia in 2022, and is complemented by an essay from the editors on the Christian tradition of Judith. [Publisher's text]

Collected essays.

532927 characters