The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

KAUFMAN Dating the Language of the Palestinian Targums 119
permutation of relative datings of both their texts and the traditions
preserved in those texts was proposed. The past fifteen years or so
have witnessed a somewhat quieter time, at least so it seems to me, a
period of reconsideration and synthesis, and, most importantly, a
period for the development of the scholarly tools necessary to the
achievement of the kind of conclusions that the first twenty years of
this period tried—but failed miserably—to reach.
In a paper I prepared in 1977, presented in 1978, and published at
request of Bruce Chilton several years later, I questioned the
methodologies then in vogue for dating the targumim. 3 Among other
things, I, like others, 4 called for the development of critical linguistic
tools for the study of the texts—grammars and dictionaries. Since
then, many such tools have indeed seen the light. Surely the situation
is vastly better now than it was only a few years ago. We have a
grammar, albeit severely limited, of one book of Neophyti 5 —many
other promised grammars seem never to have reached a level to merit
publication. We have a grammar of the Palestinian Targum materials
from the Genizah.6 We have a splendid new publication of the
Palestinian Genizah materials themselves, many new texts having been
identified in the process, 7 although a promised edition of Onqelos
Genizah materials seems to have been stillborn. 8 We have a concordance
to Pseudo-Jonathan 9 and a massive study of the Aggadic materials
within it and the other targumim. 10 We have a new dictionary of
Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period—in spite of its
3. 'On Methodology'.
4. E.g., R. Le Deaut, Biblical Theology Bulletin 4 (1974).
5. D.M. Golomb, A Grammar of Tar gum Neofiti (Harvard Semitic Monographs
34; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985).
6. S.E. Fassberg, A Grammar of the Palestinian Targum Fragments from the
Cairo Genizah (Harvard Semitic Studies, 38; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990).
7. M.L. Klein (ed.), Genizah Manuscripts of the Palestinian Targum to the
Pentateuch (2 vols.; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1986). At the conference
Dr Klein also unveiled his new bibliographic volume of targumic manuscripts in
the Cambridge Genizah collection.
8. Such a project was started by S. Lund in the late 70s, but has long since disappeared
from view.
9. E.G. Clarke, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and
Concordance (with collaboration by W.E. Aufrecht, J.C. Kurd, and F. Spitzer;
Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1984).
10. A. Shinan, cnoninn 'TO ima« (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Makor, 1979).