Reading common sense into the Geography of the Book of Tobit

 

To the good friend who wrote this about the geography of the Book of Tobit:

Tobias and the Tigris.

Several possibilities exist here. It is not unknown for several streams to bear the same name, nor is it impossible that the swiftest road into Media was a highway which was accessed by Tobias traveling to the real Tigris River to connect with this route.

….

 

The AMAIC replies:

 

What we have argued with early Genesis, especially the Six Days and the Flood, is that a ‘surface’ reading of a biblical text may sometimes lead one to a conclusion that is far from what the original scribe(s) intended, and often far also from common sense. Such we believe to be the case, too, with standard versions of the Book of Tobit with regard to its geography. If we would believe the text as it currently stands, the angel Raphael was leading young Tobias (our Job) a merry dance inasmuch as, with a starting point at Assyrian Nineveh, and with the aim of arriving at Rages near Ecbatana in Media - Ecbatana being some 185 miles east of Nineveh - the angel brings Tobias in the evening to the river Tigris, directly west of Nineveh.

No wonder then that, on this basis, The Jerusalem Bible says that “the geography is inexact”, and that Fr. D. Dumm (“Tobit”) in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, exclaims that:

 

“[The angel] Raphael knows the journey of life far better than the route to Media!”

 

Unfortunately, though, Fr. Dumm just leaves it at that, without being willing, or able, to defend the accuracy of the Bible with a proper explanation of what is happening here.

But we need to go to other versions of the Book of Tobit to find the solution.

There is no geographical support in the Book of Tobit for an eastwards journey, from Nineveh to the classical Media (Ecbatana and Rhages):

 

For one, the River Tigris is west of Nineveh;

And, whilst the Median Rhages is in the plain, with Ecbatana being in the mountains, the Book of Tobit has Ecbatana in the plain and Rages in the mountains (see below);

And again, Charan (Haran), in Syria, is, according to the Douay version of Tobit, ‘midway’ between Nineveh and ‘Media’;

And furthermore, whereas the journey from Tobit's Ecbatana to Rages normally took “two full days”, the almost 200-mile journey from the Median Ecbatana to Rhages would have taken significantly longer. In fact it took the army of Alexander the Great 11 days at full gallop to march from the one to the other ^13]. Rightly then does Jan Simons observe (according to a Median context) that the journey referred to in the Book of Tobit "would be a forced 'journey of two days' even for an express messenger"^14].

 

Thankfully there are versions of the Book of Tobit that set us aright, however, with Ecbatana becoming “Bathania” (the Roman province of Batanaea), that is, the fertile Bashan, east of the River Jordan in Palestine, and Media becoming “Midian”.

Thus the angel Raphael knows exactly what he is doing.

Why, did he not inform the anxious Tobit that he knew the way thoroughly (as an angel would know)?

So we find that the real angel Raphael was escorting the young Tobias, not eastwards, but westwards from Nineveh, to the Tigris crossing, then to Haran, and on to Bashan (where the angel then leaves on an early flight for Damascus).   

 

I [Damien Mackey] discussed all this in Volume Two [of my thesis], Chapter 2, pp. 38-40, where I had specifically claimed that “Rages”, a city in the mountains, must be the city of Damascus that dominated the province of Batanaea” (p. 39). Damascus, almost 700 m above sea level, is actually situated on a plateau. Secondly, I gave there very specific geographical details in order to identify this “Rages” in relation to “Ecbatana” (Tobit 5:6), which I had in turn identified (following the Heb. Londinii, or HL, fragment version of Tobit) with “Bathania”, or Bashan (possibly Herodotus’ Syrian Ecbatana as opposed to the better known Median Ecbatana). According to Tobit, “Rages is situated in the mountains, two days’ walk from Ecbatana which is in the plain”. Now Damascus is precisely two days’ walk from Bashan in the Hauran plain, as according to Jâkût el-Hamawi who says of Batanaea’s most central town of Nawâ …: “Between Nawa and Damascus is two days’ journey” (as quoted on p. 39). What further consolidates the fact that Tobit’s ‘Ecbatana’ was in a westerly direction, rather than an easterly one, is that his son Tobias, leaving Nineveh, arrived at the Tigris river in the evening; an impossibility were he heading for Median Ecbatana in the east. And, according to the Vulgate version of Tobit, Charan, that is, Haran, is situated “in the halfway” between Nineveh and Ecbatana. The traveller is clearly journeying towards the west. Whilst Bible scholars today tend to dismiss the whole geography of the Book of Tobit as nonsensical, a simple adjustment based on a genuine version (Heb. Londinii), makes perfect - even very precise (“two days walk”) - sense of it.

 

The testimony of Jâkût el-Hamawi here was an absolute clincher for me, not only when trying to make sense of the geography of the Book of Tobit, but also for having Tobias, with the angel, heading to the very region in Naphtali from where Tobit himself had hailed (Naphtalian Bashan), but also - from the point of view of having the geography of Tobit converge with that of Job (my Tobias) - with the pair of travellers heading to the very geographical region, Bashan, where ancient legends of Job place his home of Uz and his final resting place.

 

Syro-Arabic Traditions

Again, this Damascene region is the very one in which the Syro-Arabic traditions place the home of Job.

The Jâkût el-Hamawi and Moslem tradition generally mention the east Hauran fertile tract of country north-west of Têmâ and Bûzân, el-Bethenîje (i.e. Batanaea), as the district in which Job dwelt. According to Abufelda ^25]: "The whole of Bethenije, a part of the province of Damascus, belonged to Job as his possession".

The Syrian tradition also locates Job's abode in Batanaea, where lies an ancient "Monastery of Job" (Dair Êjûb), built in honour of the holy man.

All the larger works on Palestine and Syria agree that "Uz" is not to be sought in Edom proper. In these works we also find it recorded that Batanaea is there called Job's fatherland. In Batanaea itself the traveller hears this constantly. If any one speaks of the fruitfulness of the whole district; or of the fields around a village, he is always answered: 'Is it not the land of Job (bilâd Êjûb)?'; 'Does it not belong to the villages of Job (diâ Êjûb)?'.

It seems that Batanaea (Hauran) and the land of Job are synonymous.

Job's Tomb and other Relics

Regarding Job's tomb, we read from Ibn er-Râbi that ^26]: "To the prophets buried in the region of Damascus belongs also Job, and his tomb is near Nawa, in the district of Hauran".

Delitzsch ^27] notes, in favour of Batanaea, that the "heap of ashes" (Job 2:8) upon which Job sat in his misery is variously translated as "dunghill", and that only in a Batanaean context is there no contradiction, since the two were "synonymous notions". There the dung, being useless for agricultural purposes, is burnt from time to time in an appointed place before the town; while in any other part of Syria it is as valuable as among any farmer. This distinctive fact, he concludes, is yet another indication that Job's "land of Uz" cannot refer to the land of Edom.