Customer Reviews

The Book of Tobit (Jewish Apocryphal Literature Ser.)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I did my review on the book of Tobit from the Bible. The book of Tobit is about Tobit's son Tobiah and the angel Raphael. Tobit could once see, but got sick and went blind. Tobiah needs to make a journey to the city of Rages to get some gold that Tobit deposited in a bank there some years ago. Raphael, one of God's angels, accompanied Tobiah on his journey to guide and protect him. Raphael took the form of a human and said he was the son of one of Tobit's friends. Tobit consented, so Raphael went with Tobiah, and their journey began. Raphael helped Tobiah catch a fish that greatly helps him later on in the journey. That fish has great medicinal powers. Tobiah makes it to Rages and finds out that he was entitled to marry a beautiful woman. Her name was Sarah. She was possessed by a demon. That demon killed every husband that she ever had. Raphael told Tobiah that the fish's heart and liver could repel demons, and the bladder could heal blindness. Tobiah put the heart and liver on the embers of a fire and got ready to go to sleep with his new wife. The demon smelled the fish and fled to Egypt where Raphael captured him. Tobiah got the money and took it, his wife, and half of her father Raguel's animals back home. On the way home Raphael told him to rub the fish's bladder on Tobit's face to cure his (Tobit's) blindness. When they got there, Tobiah rubbed the fish's bladder on his father's face, and instantly his father was healed of his blindness. Raphael chose this moment to reveal to them that he was an angel. Tobit and Tobiah fell down in fear, but Raphael told them not to be afraid. He left soon after this. Tobit composed a very long poem in praise of God. This story's theme is trusting. Tobit had to trust that God would give him back his sight. Tobiah had to trust that God would keep him safe on his journey to Rages, and again he had to trust that God would protect him from the demon. He also had to trust that Raphael was telling the truth about the fish and about his ancestry. Tobiah's conflict was deciding whether or not to marry Sarah even though she was possessed. He chose to let God handle it and to just trust him. The author's writing style is Straightforward. He tells exactly what's going on in the story, without giving very many details. This is shown when he says "they made camp beside the Tigris River (Tobit 6:2)" and again when the author describes the setting simply by saying "it was dark (Tobit 7:6)."