Hello dear Father Angelo,
While reading the book of Tobit I wondered why they burned the heart and liver of a fish in order to cast out the devil. And why did they use gall to heal Tobit’s blindness?  
I watched a YouTube video of a friar who referred to the book of Tobit as a “fable”.
I think that, since it’s a biblical account, it cannot be a parable, but rather an event that really happened.
What do you think?
Thank you for your eventual reply and God bless you.  

Priest’s answer 

Dearest,
1. The Jerusalem Bible, when introducing the book of Tobit, doesn’t discuss the historicity of the book. It seems to take it for granted.
It simply says: “The book of Tobit is a family history…”.
It is an edifying story that highlights the duties of piety towards the dead and of almsgiving.
The sense of family, on the other hand, is expressed with enchanting vividness.
In it, we find a very flattering, Christian ante litteram, notion of marriage.
The angel Raphael makes manifest and hides at the same time the action of God, of whom he is an instrument.
The message of the book is precisely the invitation to recognize this daily providence, this nearness of the compassionate God.”
This introduction takes for granted that this is the word of God and gets down to the bedrock of the story. This is essential. 

2. The Dominican Marco Sales supports the historicity of the books and writes: “It is a common judgment among Catholics that the book of Tobit tells a true and real story.
The fact that the author wanted to tell a factually true story is made evident by all of those genealogical, historic, chronological and geographical peculiarities that we meet in every page, which suppose a series of real events.
On the other hand, if everybody agrees that the goal of the author was to provide a justification of providence, or to instill the observance of the Law or the practice of works of mercy… it is hard to imagine how he could have reached this goal by telling a made-up story.
Souls aren’t stirred towards virtue through imaginary miracles and fables and God does not need such gimmicks to justify Himself.
Let’s add to this the fact that Tobit was always enumerated among the three historical books.
Allegory, parable, poetic implications are, of course, not incompatible with divine inspiration however, in this case, it should be proven with solid arguments and not simple conjectures that the author of the book of Tobit did not intend to write down a real story, but rather an allegory, a parable, a poetically amplified event, etc.
This has yet to be proven.”

3. You can see how, even without having undertaken biblical studies, you gave pretty much the exact same answer as the Dominican. 

4. Marco Sales goes on to say: “The majority of Protestants think that the book of Tobit is simply some sort of sacred fiction, loosely based on a few historical events and therefore reject it from their bibles.
Their arguments, however, are based on rationalistic prejudices or, at the most, prove that certain proper names weren’t preserved with perfect accuracy”.
By rejecting miracles, the rationalistic prejudices try to explain everything through reason and consider miracles as allegories, fables…
But miracles still happen today, like that of the Spanish 16 year-old girl, Jemena, who was blind and, while participating in World Youth Day in Lisbon, regained her eyesight while praying the Rosary with the Pope: “When I opened my eyes I could see perfectly. It was too much, we have to give much thanks for the miracle because I could see the altar, the Tabernacle, my girlfriends were there and I could see them perfectly. This has been a proof of faith, the Virgin gave me a gift that I won’t forget”. 

5. Regarding the use of the liver, heart, etc. we should not look for a particular meaning in these organs.
Marco Sales writes: “The liver and heart of the fish were nothing more than instruments in the hands of God and of the angel, who used them to cast off the devil. The same can be said of the smoke”. 

I bless you, remember you in my prayers and wish you the best.
Father Angelo

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