The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

KAUFMAN Dating the Language of the Palestinian Targums 123
of circle. In fact, then, it remains the case that Cross's precise dating
of the Qumran scripts, a theory only—based at best on dubious
methodological presuppositions—still provides the basis for much of
the dating of this material. It follows that we need not rush blindly
headlong to follow this race toward antiquity. But whether some of
the Qumran Aramaic texts were composed as early as the third century
BCE really makes no difference for the enterprise that is our concern
today. Nor do we need to enter into the intricate details of the
relative linguistic dating of the Qumran Aramaic texts at this point;
for when all is said and done those differences are not all that substantial.
What Qumran does appear to make perfectly clear is that as
late as the middle of the first century CE, Qumran-like Aramaic, whatever
its origin, served as the literary standard. Again, the difference
between literary and colloquial, and the influence of the colloquial on
the formal, is the key.
Onqelos/Jonathan
If we are right about Qumran, however, we are left with precious
little time and scarcely any space wherein to position the origin of the
literary dialect of Onqelos and Jonathan—a dialect that we refer to for
the CAL as JLA, Jewish Literary Aramaic. But is it not precisely here
where we do, indeed, seem to have a consensus—if not a unanimous
one; a consensus based on the admittedly groundbreaking work of
A. Tal? 16 Everyone cites his work, so it must be true. I doubt it!
A careful rereading and re-evaluation of Tal's arguments has convinced
me that the entire debate must be reconsidered, for there is a
fatal flaw in Tal's reasoning, a flaw inherent in the nature of the evidence
with which he worked. Time does not allow a detailed review
of the evidence here. Let me hint only that the problem lies in the fact
that the Western Aramaic dialects are, in general, more conservative
than the Eastern Aramaic dialects, so that most of the similarities
between JLA and that of Western Aramaic involve survivals of
common Aramaic forms rather than shared innovations, whereas only
the latter kind of evidence is definitive in such an enterprise.
Moreover, the relationship between Onqelos/Jonathan Aramaic and
16. A. Tal (Rosenthal), The Language of the Targum of the Former Prophets and
its Position within the Aramaic Dialects (Texts and Studies in the Hebrew Language
and Related Subjects, 1; Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 1975).