Judith Cynthia Aline Keppel (born 18 August 1942) ^[1] was the first one million-pound winner on the television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in the United Kingdom.

Personal life[link]

Keppel's father was a Lieutenant Commander in the Fleet Air Arm, who moved with the family to various naval postings around Britain until they settled in London when she was 17. Although she took A-levels and completed a secretarial course, she was groomed for marriage, rather than a career. Her first husband was Desmond Corcoran, an art dealer. The couple went on to have three children, Sibylla, Alexander, and Rosie, but divorced in 1980. In 1985 she married comedy script writer Neil Shand. They separated in 1987. ^[2]

Keppel is the granddaughter of Walter, 9th Earl of Albemarle. Her great-grandfather, the 8th Earl was brother-in-law of Alice Keppel, the mistress of King Edward VII and was the great-uncle of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.^[3] The Duchess of Cornwall is therefore her second cousin once removed.

[edit] Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Keppel appeared on the 20 November 2000 episode of the UK edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, becoming the 12th winner in the world and the first in the UK to win one million pounds. There was speculation at the time that the win was fixed so that ITV would draw ratings away from BBC One which was showing the last episode of One Foot in the Grave in the same timeslot. However, the Independent Television Commission cleared Celador and ITV of the allegations.^[4] Keppel's victory was achieved exactly a year after the first Millionaire winner was broadcast, when John Carpenter became the first winner of the US version of the show as well as becoming the first winner worldwide.

Keppel now appears on the BBC Two quiz show Eggheads, where she and six other quiz champions are pitted against members of the public.

References[link]

1. ^ Charles Mosley (ed.), Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage (London: Burke's Peerage, 1999)
2. ^ Woods, Judith (4 August 2001). "Thank God, I don't have to move to France". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4724890/Thank-God-I-dont-have-to-move-to-France.html. 
3. ^ Sir William Coutts Keppel, 7th Earl of Albemarle thePeerage.com
4. ^ "Millionaire? cleared of ratings 'fix'". BBC News. 15 January 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1118212.stm. Retrieved 2007-01-28. 

External links[link]

• Judith Keppel at the Internet Movie Database

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Judith with the Head of Holophernes, by Cristofano Allori, 1613 (Royal Collection, London)

Judith with the Head of Holophernes, by Simon Vouet, (Alte Pinakothek, Munich)

Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes

The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book, included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible, but excluded by Jews and Protestants. The book contains numerous historical anachronisms, which is why many scholars now accept it as non-historical; it has been considered a parable or perhaps the first historical novel.^[1]

The name Judith (Hebrew: יְהוּדִית, Modern Yehudit Tiberian Yəhûḏîṯ ; "Praised" or "Jewess") is the feminine form of Judah.

In the Deuterocanon[link]

The Book of Judith has a tragic setting that appealed to Jewish patriots and it warned of the urgency of adhering to Mosaic law, generally speaking, but what accounted for its enduring appeal was the drama of its narrative. The story revolves around Judith, a daring and beautiful widow, who is upset with her Jewish countrymen for not trusting God to deliver them from their foreign conquerors. She goes with her loyal maid to the camp of the enemy general, Holofernes, with whom she slowly ingratiates herself, promising him information on the Israelites. Gaining his trust, she is allowed access to his tent one night as he lies in a drunken stupor. She decapitates him, then takes his head back to her fearful countrymen. The Assyrians, having lost their leader, disperse, and Israel is saved. Though she is courted by many, she remains unmarried for the rest of her life.

It is not clear whether the Book of Judith was originally written in Hebrew or in Greek. The oldest extant version is the Septuagint and might either be a translation from Hebrew or composed in Greek. Details of vocabulary and phrasing point to a Greek text written in a language modeled on the Greek developed through translating the other books in the Septuagint.^[2] The extant Hebrew language versions, whether identical to the Greek, or in the shorter Hebrew version, are medieval. The Hebrew versions name important figures directly such as the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes, thus placing the events in the Hellenistic period when the Maccabees battled the Seleucid monarchs. The Greek version uses deliberately cryptic and anachronistic references such as "Nebuchadrezzar", a "King of Assyria," who "reigns in Nineveh," for the same king. The adoption of that name, though unhistorical, has been sometimes explained either as a copyist's addition, or a voluntary literary name assigned to the ruler of Babylon (more or less as Caesar, in the Gospel, was used for Tiberius in his quality of Roman Emperor).

The historicity and canonicity of the Book of Judith in early Christianity was never disputed before Jerome began to translate the Bible into Latin. The first quote of the Book can be found by the end of the 1st century AD in the First Epistle of Clement^[3] to the Corinthians: the story is briefly told by the fourth Pope, but the narration omits the name of the city of Bethulia and of the king of Nineveh. The book is quoted by Pope Clement I (1 Clement ch. 55) side-by-side with the canonical Book of Esther, and both are clearly assigned the same degree of historicity and canonicity. Judith was generally listed among the Anagignoskomena, i.e. those books (now called Deuterocanonical) which the Church believed to be authoritative despite not belonging in the Jewish Canon. Ambrose of Milan also quotes the book as canonical.^[4] The historical identity of Nebuchadrezzar was unknown to the Church Fathers, but some of them attempted an improbable identification with Artaxerxes III Ochus, not on the basis of the character of the two rulers, but because of the presence of a "Holofernes" and a "Bagoas" in Ochus' army. Jerome advanced some doubt regarding the historicity and inspiration of those books which were absent in the Palestinian Canon due to the principle Veritas Hebraica; yet Pope Gelasius I obliged Jerome to obey the canons of the so called third Council of Carthage, held in Africa under St. Augustine of Hippo in 397, which declared the canonicity of the Deuterocanon. The book was thus added by Jerome in his Vulgate, despite being translated from a different text (in Chaldean) than the LXX version used in the early centuries for the Old Latin translations. The Canons of the Council of Carthage were later confirmed by the Quinisext Council, which makes the book a part of the Orthodox Bible; while in the West, the book's canonicity was later ratified at the Council of Trent.

Even though the Book of Judith is not considered a part of the official Jewish religious canon, many Jewish scholars regard it as true reference to the background events relating to military struggle leading up to the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. (See also 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees).

The city called "Bethulia," (properly "Betylua") and the narrow and strategic pass into Judea that it occupies (Judith IV:7ff VIII:21-24) are believed by many to be fictional settings^{[citation needed]}, but some suggest that a city called Meselieh is Bethulia.^[5]

Main characters[link]

Judith, the heroine of the book. She is a widow, once married to a certain Manasses. She uses her charm to become an intimate friend of Holofernes, but finally beheads him allowing Israel to counter-attack the Assyrians.

Holofernes, the villain of the book. He is a devout soldier of his king, whom he wants to see exalted in all lands. He is given the task of destroying the rebels who didn't support the king of Nineveh in his resistance against Cheleud and the king of Media, until Israel also becomes a target of his military campaign. Judith's charm occasions his death.

Nebuchadnezzar, claimed here to be the king of Nineveh and Assyria. He is so proud that he wants to affirm his strength as a sort of divine power. Holofernes, his Turtan, is ordered to take revenge on those who refused to ally themselves with him.

Bagoas, a Persian name denoting an official of Holofernes. He is the first one who discovers Holofernes' beheading.

Achior, an Ammonite king at Nebuchadnezzar's court; he warns the king of Assyria of the power of the God of Israel but is mocked. He is the first one to recognize Holofernes' head brought by Judith in the city, and also the first one to praise Hashem.

Oziah, governor of Bethulia; together with Cabri and Carmi, he rules over Judith's city.

In the Christian West from the patristic period on, Judith was invoked in a wide variety of texts as a multi-faceted allegorical figure. “Mulier sancta,” she personified the Church and many virtues – Humility, Justice, Fortitude, Chastity (the opposite of Holofernes’ vices Pride, Tyranny, Decadence, Lust) – and she was, like the other heroic women of the Hebrew scriptural tradition, made into a typological prefiguration of the Virgin Mary. Her gender made her a natural example of the biblical paradox of “strength in weakness”; she is thus paired with David and her beheading of Holofernes paralleled with that of Goliath – both deeds saved the Covenant People from a militarily superior enemy.

Later artistic renditions[link]

In literature[link]

The first extant commentary on The Book of Judith is by Hrabanus Maurus (9th c.). Thenceforth her presence in medieval European literature is robust: in homilies, biblical paraphrases, histories and poetry. An Old English poetic version is found together with Beowulf (their epics appear both in the Nowell Codex). At the same time she is the subject of a homily by the Anglo-Saxon abbot Ælfric. The two conceptual poles represented by these works will inform much of Judith’s subsequent history.^{[citation needed]} In the epic, she is the brave warrior, forceful and active; in the homily she is an exemplar of pious chastity for cloistered nuns. In both cases, her narrative gained relevance from the Viking invasions of the period. Within the next three centuries Judith would be treated by such major figures as Frauenlob, Dante, and Geoffrey Chaucer.

In medieval Christian art, the predominance of church patronage assured that Judith’s patristic valences as “Mulier Sancta” and Virgin Mary prototype would prevail: from the eighth century frescoes in Santa Maria Antigua in Rome through innumerable later bible miniatures. Gothic cathedrals often featured Judith, most impressively in the series of 40 stained glass panels at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1240s).

In Renaissance literature and visual arts, all of these trends were continued, often in updated forms, and developed. The already well established notion of Judith as an exemplum of the courage of local people against tyrannical rule from afar was given new urgency by the Assyrian nationality of Holofernes, which made him an inevitable symbol of the threatening Turks. The Italian Renaissance poet Lucrezia Tornabuoni chose Judith as one of the five subjects of her poetry on biblical ficgures.^[6] A key example is the Judita of the Dalmatian humanist Marko Marulić (1450–1524), which inspired by the contemporary struggle of the Croats against the Ottomans.

A similar dynamic was created in the 16th century by the confessional strife of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Both Protestants and Catholics draped themselves in the protective mantle of Judith and cast their “heretical” enemies as Holofernes.

In sixteenth-century France, writers such as Guillaume Du Bartas, Gabrielle de Coignard and Anne de Marquets composed poems on Judith's triumph over Holofernes. The Catholic tract "A Treatise of Schisme" written in 1578 at Douai by the English scholar Gregory Martin included a paragraph in which Martin expressed confidence that "the Catholic Hope would triumph, and pious Judith would slay Holofernes". This was interpreted by the English Protestant authorities at the time as incitement to slay Queen Elizabeth I. It served as the grounds for the death sentence passed on printer William Carter who had printed Martin's tract and who was executed in 1584.

In painting and sculpture[link]

Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi

The account of Judith's beheading Holofernes has been treated by several painters and sculptors, most notably Donatello and Caravaggio, as well as Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna, Giorgione, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Titian, Horace Vernet, Gustav Klimt, Artemisia Gentileschi, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Trophime Bigot, Francisco Goya, Francesco Cairo and Hermann-Paul. Also, Michelangelo depicts the scene in multiple aspects in one of the Pendentives, or four spandrels on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

In music and theatre[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The famous 40-voice motet Spem in alium by English composer Thomas Tallis, is a setting of a text from the Book of Judith.

The story also inspired a play by Abraham Goldfaden, oratorios by Antonio Vivaldi, and W. A. Mozart, and an operetta by Jacob Pavlovitch Adler.

Alessandro Scarlatti wrote an oratorio in 1693, La Giuditta, as did the Portuguese composer Francisco António de Almeida in 1726; Juditha triumphans was written in 1716 by Antonio Vivaldi; Mozart composed in 1771 La Betulia Liberata (KV 118), to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. Arthur Honegger composed an oratorio, Judith, in 1925 to a libretto by Rene Morax. Operatic treatments exist by Russian composer Alexander Sernov, Judith, and by German composer Siegfried Matthus.

In 1840, Friedrich Hebbel's play Judith was performed in Berlin. He deliberately departs from the biblical text:

I have no use for the biblical Judith. There, Judith is a widow who lures Holofernes into her web with wiles, when she has his head in her bag she sings and jubilates with all of Israel for three months. That is mean, such a nature is not worthy of her success [...]. My Judith is paralyzed by her deed, frozen by the thought that she might give birth to Holofernes' son; she knows that she has passed her boundaries, that she has, at the very least, done the right thing for the wrong reasons.^[7]

English playwright Howard Barker examined the Judith story and its aftermath, first in the scene "The Unforeseen Consequences of a Patriotic Act," as part of his collection of vignettes, The Possibilities. Barker later expanded the scene into a short play Judith.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Robin, Diana Maury, Larsen, Anne R. and Levin, Carole (2007). Encyclopedia of women in the Renaissance: Italy, France, and England. ABC-CLIO, Inc. 

External links[link]

Greek Wikisource has original text related to this article: Book of Judith

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The King James Version of the Book of Judith

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Judith and Holofernes

• The Book of Judith Full text (also available in Arabic)
• Another text, this one including a link to download as a single document
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Judith
• Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia: Judith: Apocrypha
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Book of Judith
• World Wide Study Bible: Judith
• The New York Public Library's Judith Project