Who was Tobit in The Bible?

Answer 1

A:Tobit is the central character in the Book of Tobit, one of the Deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Old Testament. Set among the Israelites exiled by the Assyrians after the destruction of Israel in 722, the book was written during the period following the Babylonian Exile but before the Maccabean era. Tobit himself was a pious Israelite, whose son Tobias also plays an important part in the book.

Everett Ferguson (Backgrounds of Early Christianity) says that the historical background given the story is quite confused and obviously fictitious. Tobit is really no more than a character in a short story.

Answer 2

In The Bible, Tobit is the "son of Tobiel, the son of Ananiel, the son of Aduel, the son of Gabael, of the seed of Asael, of the tribe of Nephthali" (Tobit 1:1) and father of Tobias, a young man who meets and befriends the Archangel Rafael (Tobit 3:17).

Answer 3

The Book of Tobit tells the story of a righteous Jew named Tobit living in Nineveh after the deportation of the northern tribes of Israel to Assyria in 721 BC under Shalmaneser V.
He was particularly noted for his diligence in attempting to provide proper burials for fallen Jews who had been slain by Sennacherib, for which the king seized all his property and exiled him. After Sennacherib's death, he was allowed to return to Nineveh, but again buried a dead man who had been murdered on the street. That night, he slept in the open and was blinded by bird droppings that fell in his eyes. This put a strain on his marriage, and ultimately, he prayed for death.
Meanwhile, in faraway Media, a young woman named Sarah prays for death in despair, because she has lost seven husbands to the demon Ashmodai (Asmodeus) The Devil Asmodeus kills every man she marries on their wedding night, before the marriage can be consummated. God sent the angel Raphael, disguised as a human, to heal Tobit and to free Sarah from the demon.

Catholics list the Book of Tobit among the "historical books" of the Bible, but Protestant Churches regard it as an apocryphal book. Modern scholars regard Tobit more as a religious novel with certain historical elements, many of which seem to contradict the information contained in extra-Biblical records. Tobit is a character in the Book of Tobit and, on the scholarly view, did not really exist.