Carey Moore gives a good scholarly review of the major views regarding the Judith story as well as themes and literary devices. Judith is the story of a young pious Jewish widow who , by cunning and deceit, gained the trust of Holofernes, a general of the assyrian army, and slew him after he was in a drunken sleep. She did this as a result of the Assyrian campaign against the Jews and her own peoples paralysis in the face of this onslaught. Judith is the ultimate in female assertive behaviours in Patriarchal society and it demonstrates the power of the human spirit to raise itself in courage and act in extraordinary ways. There are some historical discrepancies in the story itself that scholars have debated that may have helped to keep Judith out of both the christian cannon and the jewish cannon, albeit the fact that Judith was a "woman" probably served to keep Judith out of the jewish cannon more than the problems of historicity. I would recommend this book simply for the sake of information about other books that may have helped to shape the thoughts and ideas of Jewish paradigms and especially its relation to liberation theology.