Holy Wr*t! is a collection of irreverent and fantastical short stories (this one’s fantastic), reimagining the world of the Bible. Email subscribers get each new story delivered for free. If you haven’t already, please sign up now!
This week’s story is about Judith. If, like me, you grew up in conservative evangelical circles, you probably never heard about Judith. Here’s what you need to know: Judith is beautiful, virtuous, and assiduously shrewd. The legends of her deeds are included as scripture for Catholics and most Orthodox Christians, but excluded by Protestants and most Jews. Judith is famous for cutting off the head of Holofernes, the evil commander of the invading Assyrian army. Buckle up!
“Then Judith brought forth the head of Holofernes out of the satchel, and shewed it them, saying: Behold the head of Holofernes the general of the army of the Assyrians, and behold his canopy, wherein he lay in his drunkenness, where the Lord our God slew him by the hand of a woman.”
– Judith 13:19
Judith could see angels, which was just fine for her, but it scared the shit out of the angels. “That’s the Holy Writ, or I’m a deviled egg,” she said, swiping the book out of the recording angel’s fingers. He watched in horror as Judith stepped on the edge of the parchment and yanked the scroll taunt. Her head tilted sideways as she stared the columns up and down. The angel gulped. No one had warned him about Judith.
“Hang on a min—” said the angel.
“Mind your own business,” said Judith. She went back to reading.
Short of pointing out that this was his business, the angel had no idea what to do. Recording angels are not generally required to be creative thinkers.
“Look at this,” said Judith, jabbing at the parchment. “Look at it!” She glanced up until he shuffled closer. His standard-issue sword smacked against his shins as he moved.
The angel could tell she was very beautiful—even for a human person. She had lovely brown eyes, and hair that flowed in tangles behind her ears and over her right shoulder. He watched her chew a strand of it while twirling more through her sharp and delicate fingers. It was a lot to keep up with. It was mesmerizing.
“You know, you’ve got a real belle juive vibe going on right now,” she said.
“Sorry,” said the angel.
Judith turned back to look at the scroll.
The angel peered, then became distracted by something else entirely. Abra, handmaiden to Judith, could be heard—and then seen—coming towards them in the distance.
“Lady Judith,” cried Abra. “Lady Judith! God save us! Lady Judith.” Her chest and cheeks puffed and billowed in turns, each syllable punctuated—though certainly not coordinated—with the heavy footfalls of her approach. Judith and the angel watched her struggle up the slope. Abra had a talent for picking up her skirts and then immediately stepping on them, giving her ascent a distinctive herky-jerky quality, like a woodpecker falling up a hill.
“My Lady,” heaved Judith, when she had reached the top. “My Lady, it is Holofernes!”
Judith rolled her eyes. “Not now, Abra, I’m—”
“Yes now, my Lady,” said Abra, with a heady rush of adrenaline. “Holofernes approaches!
“Who?” said the angel.
“Black clouds be upon him!” cried Abra, rushing on. “That tyrant general, that wicked Holofernes! Holofernes, who shits in your wells, and steals your grandmothers’ teeth! Holofernes, that lusty winker at monkeys, that villainous scoundrel! The grapes for his wine are mashed between the devil’s own toes!”
“Yes, thank you Abra,” said Judith.
“His army, my lady. It now surrounds our fair town of Bethulia.”
“Is that where we are?” said the angel, to himself. Geography wasn’t his strong point.
“Look!” cried Abra, dramatically. They looked towards the valley. It was crawling with Assyrian soldiers. They covered the landscape, twelve thousand horsemen and a hundred and seventy thousand men-at-arms.
Judith sighed. “It’s just that I’ve managed to catch a recording angel. Look—” she waved the parchment, “I’ve even got his scroll.”
Abra could see the scroll. She couldn’t see the angel. For his part, the angel, who had spent most of Metaphysics 101 doodling marginalia rather than taking useful notes, couldn’t remember if regular humans were supposed to find him inaudible or ineffable. He wisely said nothing.
“It’s as bad as I thought, too,” said Judith.
“The invasion?” asked Abra.
“The manuscripts,” said Judith. “Wives and mothers, every one of them.”
Abra didn’t see how manuscripts could be wives or mothers. Admittedly, she was not particularly studied in the matter, as perhaps Lady Judith was. She wisely said nothing.
“I don’t object to them being wives or mothers, if they want to,” said Judith. “But what’s a woman got to do to get into the Bible on her own terms?”
The angel tried to clear his throat.
“What was that?” said Abra.
“Look at the men,” said Judith, still gazing down. “The men get included for the most idiotic things imaginable. Their names are recorded for all eternity—immortalized forever. And for what?”
Judith put both hands on the scroll and pulled it through her fingers, stopping at random. “This man invented the whistle. This man is here because his axe head fell in a river. This man threw rocks at a king. And here’s a man who valiantly refused to cook food using his own dung. A real visionary, that one. And then there’s this one, Onan, who—” she paused, pursed her lips. “Well, for him I’d rather not say.”
It seemed impossible that she could read that quickly. The angel said so.
“Good gracious!” said Abra, looking around.
“Obviously I’ve read it before,” said Judith. “I’ve just never seen it being written before.” Which, together with the army below, gave her the beginnings of an idea.
“What’s a woman got to do to make it in here?” she said.
“There are lots of women in the Holy Writ,” said the angel, finding his voice at last. Abra found his voice too. Her hands hovered experimentally in the air as she stepped between her mistress and the sound, ready to apprehend whatever spirit might leap out of the ethereal plane. It was really quite brave.
“Eve, for example,” said the angel, stepping sideways. He was anxious to avoid a confrontation with both Judith and her handmaid. “And then there’s, ah, Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, Rahab, Ruth.”
“Lots of ‘R’ names,” said Judith, stepping sideways with him.
“Deborah,” said the angel, “She was a judge.”
“Deborah was a badass,” said Judith. “And proves my point. The exception proves the rule.”
“I’ve always found that to be a slightly confusing idiom,” said the angel, nervously.
“It means,” said Judith, swinging the retracted scroll under his nose like a blade, “that if you need a list, or if you have to rely on a few exceptional pieces of evidence, you haven’t got a ubiquitous phenomenon, have you?”
Abra watched her circle upon empty space, dancing lightly from one foot to the other, the scroll now a baton, now an unfurling, flowing banner that twirled in the air alongside the fabric of her dress. Judith whirled upon the invisible voice once more.
“Women make up half the population and only a tenth of the names you write down,” said Judith. “Why is that?”
“It’s not just me,” said the recording angel, “There are others—”
“It’s no excuse,” cut in Abra. She might not be able to see him, but she knew from years of experience that blame-shifting was the refuge of the truly guilty.
Judith turned to Abra. “No one ever asks if there are any men in the Bible,” she said. “No one ever needs a list of men just to be sure. Just open it at random and point. That’s all you have to do.”
“That’s how it is, Lady Judith, for certain and true.”
“Well, I think maybe—” said the angel.
“Why is that?” said Judith.
He wanted to change the subject. His thoughts abandoned him. He gulped.
“Why is that?” said Judith, determined to let him squirm. She felt they deserved an answer. He had no answer, but he wasn’t getting away. Not without his precious book. She smiled, and waited.
In the end, the angel was saved by the trumpets of Holofernes. The battalions were seething and shifting in mad geometric patterns. The drums were calling for war.
“Something must be done,” said Judith.
The three of them watched for a space of time, each lost in separate thought.
“Wives and mothers,” said Judith. And again, a moment later, “Something must be done.”
“What are you going to do, my lady?” asked Abra.
“I—” said Judith, making up her mind, “I am going to do something that will go down through all generations of our descendants.”
Abra watched her stand a little taller.
“Write that down, angel,” said Judith. “That was a good line. In fact—” She reached over and pulled the angel’s sword from his scabbard, then deftly plunged down the scroll to take its place. “Write it all down.”
She tipped the point of the weapon towards the center of the swirling mass of evil. “Come on, Abra. Let’s go make history.”
Many years later, long after the city was saved and Abra had been retired for decades, the recording angel and Judith saw each other again. Judith had died—passed away peacefully in her sleep at the laudable old age of one hundred and five—and they met on the streets of that Place where geography is no longer a factor.
“It’s you!” said Judith, her eyes lighting up with mischievous recognition. “I know you.”
The angel cleared his throat, which, while not physiologically required, was situationally necessary. “Hello, Judith. Wonderful to see you.”
“Did you write it down?” asked Judith.
“Oh yes,” said the angel quickly. “Sixteen chapters. You came off quite well. I made sure.”
Judith nodded. “Thank you, I appreciate it.”
There was silence. The angel tried to avoid her gaze, already dreading the next question.
“Did it make it in?” asked Judith. “To the Holy Writ, I mean?” Her eyes locked on his, and he felt his stomach slip and fall down a flight of stairs.
“Well,” said the angel, shifting this way and that, “Well—that sort of depends on who you ask…”
👋 Hey! If you read this story all the way to the end, please do me a favor: tap or click the ❤️ icon below. It takes about three seconds of your time, but you wouldn’t believe how truly, disproportionally happy it makes me. Thanks!
The last line is the best!