In his review of Michael
Griffith's One Lord, One Faith: Writings
of the Early Christian Fathers as Evidences of the Restoration, John
Tvedtnes wrote:
In his discussion of Matthew 22:23-30,
Griffith seems unaware of the story (perhaps "fictional") in the Apocrypha
in which we read of a young woman, Sara, who had been married to seven husbands
(all brothers), each of whom was killed on the wedding night by a demon. But in
the story (Tobit 6: 10-8:9), Sara
ultimately marries an eighth husband, Tobias, son of Tobit, who, following
instructions from the archangel Raphael, manages to chase the demon away and is
therefore not slain. Of special interest is the fact that the archangel (who,
according to Tobit 3: 17, had been
sent to arrange the marriage) tells the young man that his wife had been
appointed to him "from the beginning" (Tobit 6:17). This implies that she had not been sealed to any of
her earlier husbands, which would explain why none of them would claim her in
the resurrection, as Jesus explained. But if she were sealed to Tobias, the
situation changes. Assuming that the Sadducees (whose real issue was one of
resurrection, not of eternal marriage) were alluding to this story but left off
part of it, this would explain why Jesus told them, "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the
power of God" (Matthew 22:29).
The claim
that Jesus was referencing the incident in the book of Tobit is one that a few other
LDS apologists have latched onto, including, at one time, myself.
Notwithstanding, there are serious problems with this argument.
In a rather
hit-and-miss book on the Catholic Old Testament canon, Steve Christie, a former
Catholic who has been a Protestant since 2004, wrote the following against the thesis Jesus was referencing
the book of Tobit, contra Tvedtnes et al.:
First, the religious sect who asked this
question to Jesus were Sadducees, who
only believed the first five writings of the Bible written by Moses (“the
Pentateuch”) were Inspired. In the footnote to Matthew 3:7 in the New American
Bible:
“The Sadducees were the priestly aristocratic
party, centered in Jerusalem. They accepted as scripture only the first five
books of the Old Testament . . . and were opposed to teachings not found in the
Pentateuch.” (emphasis added)
Why would they choose a story from a book
(Tobit) they did not believe was Inspired nor part of their canon? When Jesus
responded to them, He referred back to “the Law” as “the book of Moses” (Mark 12:26) instead of referencing the
Deuterocanon. Since the Sadducees rejected the second half of the Old Testament
– “the Prophets” – Jesus responded by quoting Exodus 3:6: “But regarding the
resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ‘I
AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’? He is not
the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:31-32). Just as the
Sadducees inquired from “the Law”
from the Hebrew Bible (not the Deuterocanon), likewise, Jesus responded from “the Law” from the Hebrew
Bible instead of the Deuterocanon.
Second, the story of Tobit does not say the
woman, Sarah, had been married to seven brothers,
but simply seven husbands (Tobit 3:8
NAB). Plus, in the tale, Sarah ends up getting married an eighth time to
Tobit’s son Tobiah (Tobit 7:9-17 NAB), and they end up having seven sons (Tobit 14:3 NAB, emphasis
added). The example given by the Sadducees does not say anything about the
woman having any children, let alone an eight husband.
Although Tobiah was Sarah’s closest relative
(“kinsmen”) and had the right to marry her (Tobit 3:17; 6:12; 7:9-10 NAB) based
on “levirate marriage” (see below), the text does not specify her previous
husbands were actually brothers, let alone related. Although the stories are
similar, they are not the same. The Sadducees would not have been referencing
this story from a text they did not believe was Inspired.
If these “husbands” were all brothers and
since Tobiah was next of kin, then why was not he the second husband to marry her instead of the eighth? Sarah’s father told Tobiah “you are my closest relative” (Tobit 7:10 NAB, emphasis added). Nothing in the
text indicates these seven “husbands” were also “brothers,” only that she had
seven husbands before she married Tobiah.
Third, the actual text the Sadducees quoted
(Matthew 22:24) was from Moses. In Deuteronomy 25:5 (“the Law”), which
discusses “levirate marriage.” The Sadducees’ point of bringing up this command
from God was to demonstrate all seven brothers were legally married to the same
women after the previous brother died. Since the Sadducees did not believe in a
bodily resurrection (Matthew 22:23), and because all seen brothers in their hypothetical story had been
married to the widow, they were simply asking which of them were married to her
if indeed there was a resurrection of the dead (v. 28) . . . Fourth, the use of
the number “seven” is an indivisible number used in the Old Testament to
symbolize completion or perfection. A woman who bears seven children was seen
as receiving a blessing from God (1 Samuel 2:5). Ruth was seen by the women as
being “better to you [Naomi] than seven sons” (Ruth 4:15). A person who had
seven sons was considered to have the ideal family (Job 1:2; 42:13; Jeremiah
15:9). The number “seven” is also used extensively in the New Testament to
signify the spiritual realm (Luke 8:2; Luke 11:26), including referring to the
fullness of the Holy Spirit as the “seven Spirits of God” (Revelation 1:4; 3:1;
4:5; 5:6). (Steve Christie, Why Protestant
Bibles are Smaller: A Defense of the Protestant Old Testament Canon [Cambridge,
Ohio: BookMark Press, 2019], 159-60)
