The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

128 The Aramaic Bible: Tar gums in their Historical Context
Qumran: compare jnoa/jriizn at al 10 with pmiD/prco at al 17!
Such a typologically mixed pattern is totally at home in Pseudo-
Jonathan and its fellow LJLA texts. Yet, it has normally been the
practice to assume that the 'Palestinian' spellings are ancient and the
'Babylonian' ones contaminations. From this evidence it should now
be clear that both constitute changes. This pattern is simply the
orthographic tradition of the medieval period. The orthography of the
'original' text is unreachable.
c. Lexicon
The essential identity of the Qumran and Genizah TL texts is clear
from their shared vocabulary and syntax, unlike the case of the Tobit
text where, in the short sample available to us, the differences are
quite striking (cf. especially 702, 703, and 706). There are a few
noteworthy differences between Q and G TL, however; not
surprisingly, perhaps, some of these, too, are similar to the kinds of
differences that obtain between targumic witnesses to the biblical text
and among targumic texts themselves. At al 18, for example wxot±> ^-n
explicitly 'in order to hear' is given for simple ua^D 1 ? 'to hear' of Q.
At aa414 lien 'and the spinal cord' becomes rrno DU 'together with the
spinal cord'. Some other variations to note are:
al!9 rvflT nosin
M08 mm inn
b!02 po HHD
In our study of Targum, then, we must be prepared to ascribe such
changes, too, to the transmission process rather than to the origin of the
materials.
The Testament of Levi is an ancient Palestinian text, as evidenced in
the Qumran exemplars. The Genizah text is the selfsame text, even
though it gives every external appearance of being a text more at
home in the medieval Jewish Aramaic literary tradition that gave rise
to Pseudo-Jonathan. The text of Tobit, on the other hand, allows us to
see how different are the kinds of correspondences we find when the
lines of relationship are less than direct. From all of the specifics
adduced from the TL material it should now be clear that the presence
of such characteristic features is indicative not of the origin of the text
but merely of the tradition that has most recently transmitted it.
Remove such features from consideration and the targumic texts that
we strive to compare often prove to be virtually identical!