Tobit Transformed: Re-Reading Tobit Through the Lens of Grief and Loss

Authors

  • Helen Efthimiadis-Keith School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/3110

Keywords:

grief and loss theory, Tobit,

Abstract

Re-reading Tobit through the lens of grief and loss theory yields a very different interpretation of this character to the negative one that I previously put forward (Efthimiadis–Keith 2013). For example, it is seen that Tobit suffers from all six of the principal loss types identified by Mitchell and Anderson (1983). After a brief introduction to grief, loss and transformation, I trace Tobit’s grief and transformation through the various stages of his life. I conclude that his transformation is due to five interlinking factors: the joy brought back by his supposed kinship connection to Azariah, his slow but steady recognition of his family and his emotions, his family’s care, and God’s seemingly late but timely intervention.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Abrahams, I. 1893. Tobit and Genesis, The Jewish Quarterly Review 5/2:348–350.

Anderson, G A. 2011. Tobit as righteous sufferer, in Mason 2011:493–507.

Black, S. 2005. When children grieve, American School Board Journal 192/8:28–30.

Bolyki, J. 2005. Burial as an ethical task in the Book of Tobit, in the Bible and in the Greek tragedies, in Xeravits and Zsengellér 2005:89–101.

Brenner–Idan, A with Efthimiadis–Keith, H (eds) 2015. A feminist companion to Tobit and Judith. A Feminist Companion to the Bible, 20. London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark.

Di Lella, A A. 2007. Tobit, in Pietersma and Wright 2007:456–477.

Efthimiadis–Keith, H. 2013. The significance of food, eating, death and burial in the book of Tobit, Journal for Semitics 22/2:553–578.

Efthimiadis–Keith, H. 2015. Food and death: an autobiographic perspective on Tobit according to one woman’s binge–eating disorder, in Brenner–Idan with Efthimiadis–Keith 2015:98–113.

Egger–Wentzel, R. 2015. Sarah’s grief to death (Tob 3:7–17), in Reif and Egger–Wentzel 2009:193–219.

Ego, R. 2009. Death and burial in the Tobit narration in the context of the Old Testament tradition, in Nicklas, Reiterer and Veheyden 2009:87–103.

Giddens, S and Giddens, O. 2000. Coping with grieving and loss. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group.

Kelley, M M. 2009. Loss through the lens of attachment to God, Journal Of Spirituality In Mental Health 11/1–2:88–106.

Kubler–Ross, E. 1970. On death and dying: what the dying have to teach doctors, nurses, clergy and their own families. Great Britain: Tavistock Publications.

Kubler–Ross, E. 2009. On death and dying: what the dying have to teach doctors, nurses, clergy and their own families. 40th Anniversary edition with a new introduction by Professor Allan Kellehear. London: Routledge.

Leaver, C A, Perreault, Y and Demetrakopoulos, A, and the AIDS Bereavement Project of Ontario's Survive & Thrive Working Group, 2008. Understanding AIDS–related bereavement and multiple loss among long–term survivors of HIV in Ontario, The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuaiity 17/1–2:37–52.

Lee, S A, Roberts, L B and Gibbons, J A. 2013. When religion makes things worse: negative religious coping as associated with maladaptive emotional responding patterns, Mental Health, Religion and Culture 16/3:291–305.

Martin, TL and Doka KJ. 2000. Men don’t cry… women do. Transcending gender stereotypes of grief. New York: Routledge.

Mason, E F (gen. ed.) 2011. A teacher for all generations: essays in honor of James C. VanderKam. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 153. Leiden: Brill.

Massey, D L. 2000. Theological and biblical interpretations of current movements and emerging paradigms within bereavement studies, Pastoral Psychology 48/6:469–486.

Matthews, L T and Marwit, S J. 2006. Meaning reconstruction in the context of religious coping: rebuilding the shattered assumptive world, Omega 53/1–2:87–104.

Miller, G. 2012. Raphael the liar: angelic deceit and testing in the book of Tobit, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 74/3:492–508.

Mitchell, K R and Anderson, H. 1983. All our losses, all our griefs: resources for pastoral care. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.

Neimeyer, R A. 2001. Reauthoring life narratives: grief therapy as meaning reconstruction, The Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences 38/3–4. Available: http://www.questia.com/read/1P3–88099242/reauthoring–life–narratives–grief–therapy–as–meaning. [Accessed 2016/08/15]

Nicklas, T, Reiterer, F V and Veheyden, J (eds) 2009. The human body in death and resurrection. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2009. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Otzen, B. 2002. Tobit and Judith. Guides to the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. London: Sheffield Academic Press.

Pietersma, A and Wright, B G (eds) 2007. A new English translation of the Septuagint. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Psychology Glossary. 2016. Überwelt. Available: http://www.psychology–lexicon.com/cms/glossary/54–glossary–u/3296–uberwelt.html. [Accessed 2016/08/20]

Reif, S C and Egger–Wentzel, R (eds) 2009. Ancient Jewish prayers and emotions: emotions associated with Jewish prayer in and around the Second Temple period. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature 26. Berlin: Walter DeGruyter.

Romanoff, B D, Israel, A C, Tremblay G C, O'Neill, M R and Roderick, H A. 1999. The relationships among differing loss experiences, adjustment, beliefs, and coping, Journal of Personal and Interpersonal Loss 4:293–308.

Rubin, S S, Malkinson, R and Witztum, E. 2012. Working with the bereaved. Multiple lenses on loss and mourning. New York: Routledge.

Rychlak, J F. 1981. Introduction to personality and psychotherapy: a theory construction approach. Second edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Seery, M D, Holman, E A and Silver, R C. 2010. Whatever does not kill us: cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99/6:1025–1041.

Servaty–Seib, H L. 2004. Connections between counseling theories and current theories of grief and mourning, Journal of Mental Health Counseling 26/2:125–145.

Versalle, A and McDowell E E. 2004/5. The attitudes of men and women concerning gender differences in grief, Omega 50/1:53–67.

Von Weissenberg, H, Pakkala, J and Marttila, M (eds) 2011. Changes in Scripture: rewriting and interpreting authoritative traditions in the Second Temple period. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Weeks, S. 2011. A Deuteronomic heritage in Tobit? in von Weissenberg, Pakkala and Marttila 2011:389–404.

Willis, C A. 2002. The grieving process in children: strategies for understanding, educating, and reconciling children's perceptions of death, Early Childhood Education Journal 29/4:221–226.

Xeravits, G G and Zsengellér, J (eds) 2005. The book of Tobit: text, tradition, theology. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, 98. Leiden: Brill.

Yeo, J C. 2011. The psychometric study of the attachment to god inventory and the brief religious coping scale in a Taiwanese Christian sample. A proposal presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy. Lynchburg, Virginia: Liberty University.

Downloads

Published

2017-08-29

How to Cite

Efthimiadis-Keith, Helen. 2017. “Tobit Transformed: Re-Reading Tobit Through the Lens of Grief and Loss”. Journal for Semitics 26 (1):101-22. https://doi.org/10.25159/1013-8471/3110.

Issue

Section

Articles
Received 2017-08-24
Accepted 2017-08-25
Published 2017-08-29