L'originale del libro di Tobia. Studio filologico-linguistico

After the publication of 4 Aramaic and 1 Hebrew manuscript of the Book of Tobit from Qumran Cave 4 by J.A. Fitzmyer, this contribution to critical discussion asks two main questions: 1) What is the original language of the presumed archetype of the different recensions of Tobit currently extant? 2) What type of Aramaic is reflected in the Qumran fragments and what is their relationship to the original text? The first part looks at the Syriac and Greek versions, and concludes that Tobit was most likely written in Aramaic. Of the two primary Greek recensions, GII (known from the Sinaiticus) is more original in comparison with GI (the "textus receptus", known from the Vaticanus and Alexandrinus), which itself seems reflect a Semitic archetype distinct from that of GII; the Syriac text of Tob 7:1-14:15 evidences a correction of a translation based on the so-called GIII recension. The Hebrew Qumran MS is itself a translation from the Aramaic. The second part examines the Semitic MSS from Qumran, and concludes that the language of the Qumran Aramaic fragments may be classified as "middle Aramaic", having marked affinities with the Aramaic of the Book of Daniel and that of such text discovered at Qumran, as the Genesis Apocryphon, the Job Targum, and the fragments of 1 Enoch. An origin of the Book of Tobit in the later part of second century BCE is proposed.