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Westmont
College
Crafting an
identity in the midst of competing kingdoms and outside invasions, the
Anglo-Saxon community interpreted its own experience through biblical
narratives. Judith, the story of a Jewish widow who seduces and beheads
the leader of an enemy army in order to save her community, was
considered canon when Christianity first came to "the Angles" and
became the subject of both an Old English poem and homily near the end
of the first millennium. This study compares the two adaptations with
their source text, the Latin Vulgate, tracking the early development of
England's
self-proclaimed identity as a Christian nation
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