The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

KAUFMAN Dating the Language of the Palestinian Tar gums 127
a. Grammar
1. Pronoun forms: note how TL Qumran ]i]« 'they' is rendered both
as ]13'» (b!02, b!04) and pan (a!02) in the Genizah text. Such
alternation is widespread in both PT and PJ texts.
2. At TL 4Qal05 piuu corresponds to Genizah pD'-mu. The use of
the 'plural' form (with yod) of the plural pronominal suffixes on
singular nouns is equally distinctive of both the Genizah material and
targum Neofiti; cf. \\mvh at Gen. 11.7 in sample A.
3. Inconsistent use of the determined form of abstract nouns:
compare TL Qumran Knpiii / Genizah npi!$ 'righteousness' at a!06
with Qumran nQDn / Genizah «nn^n 'wisdom' at a!09. This is an
inconsistency with ancient roots in Aramaic, and should be kept
distinct from the Eastern Aramaic contamination in the Onkelos/
Pseudo-Jonathan traditions leading to such forms as Krnp in Gen 11.4
andKni) at Gen. 11.6.
4. At TL a!07, compare Qumran :nn with the more ancientlooking
(i.e. biblical Aramaic looking!) mr H of the Genizah text.
This same relationship regularly holds between the Onqelos and PT
traditions when d- is the determinative pronoun: cf. Gen. 11.6
•nrarn(OJ) / ODH n(N).
5. TL Qbl02 rrm is Genizah Tinn. The latter form is characteristic
of the Onqelos/Jonathan tradition.
6. Afel causatives in TL Qumran (npoK 1 ?, bra) correspond to more
cbiblical hafel causatives (npon^, npon'?, brra) in the Genizah.
7. Similarly biblical-looking is the internal nun augment of the
Genizah forms cited in the previous paragraph.
b. Orthography
The Genizah TL text evidences a confusing combination of features.
On the one hand it seems to reflect what is generally ar493ssumed to be
Palestinian orthography in the spelling of final -d (passim) and -e (noi,
all5) with heh as opposed to aleph in the literary Aramaic tradition
of Qumran; but on the other, internal long d is indicated with aleph as
well in HKCD (a!07 bis, al!9) and HKQ (al!4), a well-known feature of
the orthography of Pseudo-Jonathan generally ascribed to contamination
from the Babylonian tradition. (Even short a is indicated with
aleph in nwo, BB06.) The spelling is also quite plene in the other usual
cases, and etymological sin can be rendered with both to and n, even to
the extent of reversing the similar orthographic inconsistency of