Category:Targum (subject)

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The Targum is the ancient Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible, with additions and modification.

< Targum Neofiti -- Targum Onkelos -- Targum Pseudo-Jonathan >

Overview

When in the Second Temple period Hebrew ceased to be the spoken language of the majority of Jews, religious texts were composed in Aramaic and Greek and translations of the ancient religious texts were made in those languages. The term Targum refers to the Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible made in Rabbinic times to be used in the synagogue and in the school. The Aramaic translations of the Bible which have survived include all the books of the Hebrew Bible excepting Daniel and Ezra-Nehemiah, which, being written in great part in Aramaic, have no Targum.

In Rabbinic literature we find rules regulating the public use of the Targum. For the Rabbis this was a practice that went back to the time of Ezra.

There are two major forms of Targum to the Pentateuch: the Palestinian Targum (Targum Yerushalmi) and the Babylonian Targum (Targum Babli). The Palestinian Targum is known in an earlier form (Targum Neofiti and Fragment Targums) and in a later form (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan). Only a few manuscripts of the Palestinian Targum survive, as the Babylonian Targum (Targum Onkelos) established itself in the Middle Ages as the official Targum of Rabbinic Judaism. It is generally maintained by scholars that the nucleus of the Palestinian Targum is older than the Babylonian, which was redacted from it.

History of research

Due to its semi-official status in Rabbinic Judaism, the Babylonian Targum (Targum Onkelos) was by far the most widely known in the Middle Ages. By Jewish scholars it was included in printed editions of the Torah, already at the end of the 15th century (its editio princeps appeared in Bologna in 1482). By Christian scholars it was included in the major Polyglot Bibles of the 16th and 17th centuries (both in Aramaic and in Latin translation).

The Palestinian Targum was known through the publication of some Fragment Targums in 1518. The editio princeps of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan appeared in Venice in 1591.

At the end of the 19th century both Targum Onkelos and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan were translated into English.

More texts of Fragment Targums resurfaced but the interest in the earlier version of the Palestinian Targum developed only after Alejandro Diez Macho identified at the Vatican Library the only extant copy of Targum Neofiti and published it in 1968-73.