The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

COOK The Language of Onqelos and Jonathan 145
Another, hit', has turned up in Targum Neofiti. That leaves only three
possible vocabulary words as evidence. Of the three grammatical
traits, the latter two (-ta and -ha) are common survivals from older
forms of Aramaic—not shared innovations—and the other (3rd fern,
pi. perf.) Kutscher later in the article conjectured to be Eastern in
origin! 7 Despite this slender evidence, Kutscher believed he had
proved that the non-Eastern element in Onqelos and Jonathan was not
simply Official Aramaic, but Western Aramaic.
How, then, can one explain a document with both Eastern and
Western elements? The Eastern elements must be a product of
redaction:
The eastern element in the T.O. can easily be explained, as indeed it has
been, by the fact of its transmission in Babylonia. But it would be difficult
to account for the presence of the western elements if it had originated in
the east. (p. 10)
Kutscher's article essentially has evaded criticism for 35 years, and
it is perhaps a vague feeling that Kutscher and his followers 'proved'
the dialectal connection between Onqelos and Jonathan and Qumran
Aramaic that accounts for the popularity of the Western view today.
It should be noted carefully that for Kutscher's view to work, the
non-Eastern elements must by seen as specifically Western. If not—if
they are defined as belonging to a supralocal standard Official
Aramaic—then there is no basis for preferring the Western view to
the Eastern view.
The fact is, as I noted, that the grammatical features that link
Qumran Aramaic to Onqelos and Jonathan are not specifically
Western. They are common retentions from an earlier stage of
Aramaic. This fact accounts for the next move made in the discussion,
which was precisely to 'de-Westernize', or more exactly, to
'standardize' Qumran Aramaic, defining the texts written in it as
either 'Standard Literary Aramaic' or as written in Aramaic koine.
Jonas Greenfield proposed the first view, Avraham Tal the latter.
Greenfield claimed to recognize a dialect used for literary purposes
alongside the Official Aramaic of the Persian period; he furthermore
asserted that this dialect was supralocal (although in a given area it
might disclose occasional 'localisms') and used on into the first few
centuries CE. Targums Onqelos and Jonathan, in fact, were written in it:
7. Kutscher, 'Language', pp. 13-14, n. 65.