APOCRYPHA: The Book of Judith

A condensed version of the story of Judith, found in Catholic Bibles and the Protestant Apocrypha.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Assyria was angry: the people of the western countries - Israel, Egypt, etc - had not helped him in his war against King Arphaxad of Persia. To punish them, the king sent General Holofernes & Army to slaughter his way through their lands.

After a few days, news of Holofernes' campaign reached Israel, who promptly began building defenses and preparing for attack. After another few days, Holofernes learned that Israel had prepared for war. He asked one of his advisors - Achior the Ammonite - to give him the low-down about Israel. Achior recounted the history of Israel, explaining their raison d'etre as God's Chosen People and the nature of the God-Israel covenant (they can only be defeated in warfare if they have annoyed Yahweh), and recommended that they not attack Israel because they had no sources to confirm whether the Israelites had recently disobeyed their God and made him angry.

Holofernes thought this was nonsense, so had Achior tied up and dumped in front of the Israelite city of Bethulia, having informed him that he will die with the people of Israel for trying to prevent the attack. Achior was brought to the Elders of Bethulia to explain the situation; the Assyrian army surrounded the city, cutting off its supply lines, waiting for the inhabitants to die or surrender.

Judith, a beautiful God-fearing woman, was not pleased about this situation. One night, she bathed herself thoroughly, combed her hair,  and dressed in her fanciest clothes and jewelry, including tiara, anklets, bracelets, rings and earrings. She left the city and went to meet the Assyrians. She told them that she was fleeing the city because she knew the people had angered God, who was using the Assyrians to punish Israel.

For four days Judith hung around with Holofernes, going for walks in the mountains, eating, praying, saying that she knew a secret way to the city which would mean he could conquer it without losing a single soldier, etc. On the evening of the fourth day, Holofernes decided to hold a banquet, with Judith as guest of honor.

The General was quite lusty that night, and hoped to woo Judith by the end of the night. To increase his confidence in this matter, he drank an awful lot of wine, so much that he passed out on his bed. The other guests left; Judith was alone with the unconscious Holofernes, so she picked up his sword and struck his neck twice, severing head from body. She put the head in her bag, sneaked out of the tent and returned to Bethulia.

"See, here is the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army. The Lord has struck him down with the hand of a woman."

She advised the city to attack the Assyrians at dawn. When the Assyrians learned of the attack, they would go into Holofernes' tent - expecting to find him sleeping with Judith - and discover his decapitated body, which would make them panic and flee.

"But first, bring Achior the Ammonite to me, and let him recognize this man who despised Israel and sent him to us as if to his death."

Achior looked upon the severed head, and saw that God had saved his chosen people, and from them on firmly believed in God: he had himself circumcised so he could join Israel.

The Israelites attacked at dawn; the Assyrians were slaughtered.

A Gnostic Creation Myth

Warning: Convoluted

Before time and space and matter, the True God existed in the realm called Pleroma. From the True God came emanations which produced Aeons, divine beings. Each successive emanation produced weaker beings, and so Sophia, the youngest Aeon, was also the weakest and furthest from the True God. Sophia wanted to know the True God, the Source of All Things, and from this desire came an emanation that produced Chaos. Terrified by the Chaos, Sophia created a being to rule over and monitor it: Ialdabaoth, the Demiurge, the First Archon.

Ialdabaoth is an inferior being created by the least of the Aeons, and so is unable comprehend that he is not the greatest thing in existence, despite Sophia's myriad attempts to explain this. The Demiurge assembled the Chaos into Matter, creating more Archons, the Seven Heavens, and the Earth. Archons argue a lot, and fight over petty things; one such disagreement led to a Heavenly Civil War. After defeating the rebels, Ialdabaoth declared "There is no God but me!"

"You are mistaken!" said Sophia.

"If there is a higher power, it should make itself known to me!"

On cue, light descended from the higher realms, and in the light a human form could be discerned.

Not one to be outdone, Ialdabaoth set about creating his own human, Adam, with the help of his Archons, each Archon being assigned a specific job (Raphao designed his head, Miamai designed his toenails, etc). But the Archons could not breath life into Adam, try as they might. At length, Ialdabaoth stole some of his mother's power and used it to bring Adam to life. But his mother's power was stronger than his, and so the Archons became jealous of Adam, recognizing in him a superior intelligence to their own. They dumped Adam in the shittest material realm they had created - Earth - and made him a partner, Eve, hoping that the humans would be content there, kept out of mischief, not interfering with the Archons' delusions of grandeur.

But Sophia had lost some of herself, and wished to regain it, for without it she could never resume her journey to the True God. Her servant, the Serpent, the wisest of all creatures, convinced Eve to disobey the Archon's orders, to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and so her eyes were opened. And she convinced Adam to do the same. The Chief Archon responded by cursing humanity, casting the couple out of Eden, and desperately trying to assert his dominance over their descendants, sending plagues, floods, rulebooks, etc, to convince them that he is the One True God.

Meanwhile, two Aeons - Christ and Holy Spirit - descended to the material world to help rescue the trapped fragments of Sophia, to awaken the dormant divinity within humanity, to make Sophia whole again.

'To Reign In Hell' by Steven Brust

After enjoying The Revolt of the Angels (1914) by Anatole France, I thought I would read some more books that play around with myth of the War in Heaven from Paradise Lost (1667) and Judeo-Christian mythology. The Internet recommended To Reign In Hell (1984) by Steven Brust.

Brust's book is a fantasy novel set in Heaven, before the creation of Earth. Brust's Yaweh is not omniscient or omnipotent; he is the first of the Firstborn Angels, not a god. Heaven is a fragile island in a sea of chaos; Heaven's inhabitants are constantly worried about the chaos beyond the walls, which threatens to destroy them all. Yaweh comes up with a plan - the creation of Earth - to save the angels from chaos, but it transpires that many angels will have to die to carry out the plan. Doubts spread. 

The ideas in the novel have a lot of promise, but the execution is so irritating and disappointing. It feels like an early draft, an unripe fruit, a story born too premature from Brust's mind-womb.

TRIH is a fantasy novel with a map

The plot is carried along by Big Misunderstandings and Communication Failures. The war could have been avoided if the important characters actually spoke to each other a little bit more. Without speaking to Satan, Yaweh decides that his best friend is definitely out to get him. Without speaking to Yaweh, Lucifer & Co decide that their good friend is definitely out to get them (Lucifer and Satan are separate characters). As the misunderstandings build up, the plot becomes irritatingly farcical.

The characters are not developed. This review compares TRIH to a high school drama:

'Yaweh, Satan, Lucifer and Lilith are the cool student council kids of the book. The archangel Michael is the big, dumb jock who just does what the cool kids tell him to. Raphael is the nice, pretty chick who goes along with Yaweh because she doesn't know what else to do. Mephistopheles is that creepy, nerdy kid who listens in on everyone's conversations and knows way too much. And so on...

Yaweh declares himself student council president ("Lord of Lords"), which ticks off the other cool kids. Raphael and Michael go along with it, even though Michael really wants to punch Yaweh in the face. And Lucifer, Lilith and Satan decide Yaweh is a big jerk and they're going to fight him.'

Add to this underdevelopment the fact that some of the characters have irritating gimmicks. Beelzebub is a golden retriever who speaks in Elizabethan English for no reason ("Methinks all is not well, milord."). Ariel is an owl who speaks in rhymes ("O mighty one of the salty sea, word has come you've need of me."). Harut speaks like an American waitress ("Sure, honey."). It often feels like Brust is trying very hard to be hilarious.

The dialogue is irritating: it is too simple and casual for the subject matter and setting. Like the poor character development and plot progression, it makes the story feel like a high school drama:

"What kind of get-together, Harut?"

"Dunno. But everybody is supposed to show up."

"Hmmmm. What about you?"

"I'll be with Leviathan."

"I see."

"Afternoon, Mephistopheles."

"So long, Harut."

The scenes are irritatingly short. When reading, our mind converts the words we read into a movie in our heads, sort of. TRIH switches between POV characters too frequently. For sake of argument, assume that a page of the book would be 1 minute of screen time in an adaptation. Chapter 12 of TRIH is 12.5 pages long. Imagine how irritating all these transitions would be; imagine if Game of Thrones switched between characters this frequently:

Scene 1: Lucifer, Lilith, Asmodia, Michael & Harut; 3 pages, 3 minutes

Scene 2: Beelzebub & Mephistopheles chat; 1 page, 1 minute.

Scene 3: Abdiel & Gabriel; ⅓ page, 20 seconds

Scene 4: Gabriel & Mephistopheles; 1 page, 1 minute

Scene 4: Beelzebub, Satan, Lucifer, Lilith, Asmodai & Michael; 3⅓ pages, 3 minutes 20 seconds

Scene 5: Kyriel & Sith; 1⅓ pages, 1 minute 20 seconds

Scene 6: Yaweh; 1/2 page, 30 seconds

Scene 7: Satan & Beelzebub; ½ page, 30 seconds

Scene 8: Abdiel & Gabriel; 1½ pages, 1 minute 30 seconds

Eight scene transitions in 12 minutes 30 seconds. This novel is so irritating.

Despite all this, I did manage to finish the novel. All the way to the end, I was tempted to give up. But I was curious where Brust would go with it; there are moments in the novel which suggest that if it had been redrafted a few more times, been left to ripen, been kept in Brust's mind-womb for a bit longer, it could have been spectacular. I would love a novel which retells the War in Heaven myth as the story of Heaven's transition from a quasi-egalitarian society to a military dictatorship, but where both sides are treated sympathetically: Yaweh the well-meaning tyrant, and Satan/Lucifer the well-meaning rebel.

"We are tyrants. That was what was so hard to come to terms with. We don't wish to be, but to do what we have to do, we must tell, not ask. And to tell the angels to do something, we must be ready to back up our words with force... I had to either abandon the Plan or become a tyrant." - Yaweh, page 203

"What I mean is this: I have decided to oppose Yaweh's plan. I think he's wrong, and dangerous, and the events of today have proven it. I mean to oppose him. I wish to see him cast down from his Palace, and I wish to see him no longer able to force his will on me, or the hosts of angels who are now under his dominion." - Lucifer, page 186

TRIH could have been great, but there is too much wrong with it. At best, it is worth reading as an interesting failure. For enjoyment, Anatole France's The Revolt of the Angels is more successful and enjoyable, and Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the best things ever written.