Echi omerici nel libro di Tobia ?

Abstract

The journey home to Nineveh by Tobiah recalls Odysseus’ novstoı to Ithaca, a journey marked by dangers and adventures and by the ideas of love and the family. The biblical book stands as a historical-religious novel although the origin is to be sought in the literary genre of folktalle enriched with didactic, edifying, and prophetic elements. This elementary narrative structure could go back to the Odyssey – archetype of the modern novel – and particularly to the folktale of Odysseus. The hagiographer could have thus re-written in theological perspective the ancient story of Tobit and Tobiah from biblical and parabiblical tradition so as to answer the problems of the Israel of his time. The numerous analogies concerning the themes (the journey to the East, the dangers, the family feelings, etc.) and the narrative elements (the relation father-son, the dog,the intermediaries, the drug, etc.) show that the author must have known Odysseus’ novstoı, and also that he relied on his readers’ knowledge of it when he outlined the story of Tobiah following the scheme of the Greek hero’s journey. One should speak of an intelligent attempt to exploit the fame of the Homeric tale in order to confer authoritative status to his story, rather than of literary dependence or emulation. Indeed, the author of the story of Tobiah uses the folktale of Odysseus to revive the hope of the Jewish community to return to their land, just like Tobiah returned to Nineveh from Rages happily married with Sarah.