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Before the Church · c. 150–100 BC

Judith

Anonymous

Full text

What it is

A widow rebukes the elders of her town for setting God a deadline, then dresses to be looked at, walks into the Assyrian camp, flatters the general for four days, and cuts off his head with his own sword while he lies drunk.

Why it lasted

Deliberately unhistorical in every detail — Nebuchadnezzar reigns over Assyria from Nineveh — which is the signal that it is a parable about deliverance rather than a chronicle. One of the most painted subjects in Western art.

Scripture it works from

Read it here

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16 sections · complete, from Bible (King James)/Judith.

Elsewhere

The complete text is held here and can be read in the reader.

These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.

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