Source criticism refers to the attempt to establish the sources used by the author and/or redactor of the final text. The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate description of what really happened. In other cases, Bible scholars use the way a text is written to determine what sources may have been used by a biblical author.
Textual criticism is a branch of philology or bibliography that is concerned with the identification and removal of errors from texts and manuscripts. Early textual critics were concerned with preserving the works of antiquity, and later with medieval and early modern manuscript writings. In the English language, the works of Shakespeare have been a particularly fertile ground for textual criticism. The principles of textual criticism, although originally developed and refined for works of antiquity, the Bible, and Shakespeare, have been applied to the works of many authors, representing periods from ancient times to the twentieth century.
Tobit grew up in the land of Israel. The king died and many of the tribes fought against the new king, including Tobit’s tribe the Naphtali The cult of Baal became the prevailing religion of Naphtali, but Tobit continued to go to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh. Not too soon afterward, the Assyrians overran the Northern tribes. Tobit and his family were taken to Nineveh as prisoners. Even through all of this Tobit continued following Jewish practices and enjoyed some money-making success, until all his assets were confiscated for burying Jews whose bodies had been left exposed after execution.
One night before Tobit closed his eyes to sleep bird’s droppings fell into his eyes. White solid films formed and the doctors could do nothing for him. After going through hard times Tobit wished for death. At the same time a woman named Sarah also wished for death. An angel heard them and went to help. Tobit sent his son Tobias on a errand and the angel in a disguise joined him. Tobias washed himself in the river and a big fish came out. The disguised angel told him to cut it up and save the heart, liver and gall. The gall was used to remove white films, so Tobias used that on his father. Tobit’s vision was restored and he lived to be 158 years old. The main lesson of this story is to always follow what you believe. Never give up, even if there are lots of hardships. Keeping your faith will help you when you need help the most.
The Maccabees were a Jewish national liberation movement that fought for and won independence from Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty. The Maccabees fought until they received Jewish independence and formed the Land of Israel.

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