The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

146 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
The relative neutrality of 'Standard Literary Aramaic' allowed for its being
understood and used in a broader area than would be possible for a strictly
local dialect. This... would explain the relative position of the various
Targums. Targum Onqelos and the Targum to the Prophets were preserved
outside of Palestine in Babylonia, not because they were written
there, as some scholars have maintained, but because they were readily
understandable in Babylonia... 8
Greenfield has never, unfortunately, given us a list of features (or
even a single feature) characteristic of Standard Literary Aramaic. It
is therefore a concept of very questionable worth. Moreover, for purposes
of pinpointing the origin of Onqelos and Jonathan, it is quite
useless. Although Greenfield seems to retain Kutscher's 'proof of
Targum Onqelos's Western origin, he has no basis for not returning
to Ginsberg's formulation. If only certain localisms betray the provenance
of a Standard Literary Aramaic text, why do Onqelos and
Jonathan's Easternisms not point to an Eastern origin?
Tal's book on the language of Targum Jonathan of the Former
Prophets is the most detailed dialectological discussion on the Onqelos
and Jonathan language. 9 He discussed many morphological and lexical
features of the Targum and his conclusion was, besides the difference
in terminology, similar to Greenfield's: Targum Jonathan (and by
implication, Targum Onqelos) was written in a supradialectal Aramaic
koine that prevailed in the Middle East up to the third century CE.
Although in grammar and vocabulary Targum Jonathan generally
displays this neutral koine character, the many lexemes it shares with
Western Aramaic dialects shows that it originated in the West.
Tal's work has impressed many. R. Le Deaut in a review said that
the Palestinian provenance of Onqelos and Jonathan seemed to have
been conclusively demonstrated. 10 Nevertheless, I believe that Tal's
work is open to criticism at several points. For one thing, although
Tal succeeded in pointing out a number of words shared only by
Targum Jonathan and by Western dialects, he also discussed words
shared only by Targum Jonathan and by Eastern dialects. The latter,
8. J. Greenfield, 'Standard Literary Aramaic', in Actes du Premier Congres
International de Linguistique Semitique et Chamito-Semitique (The Hague, 1974),
p. 287.
9. A. Tal, The Language of the Targum of the Former Prophets and its Position
within the Aramaic Dialects (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1975 [Hebrew]).
10. R. Le Deaut, Bib 58 (1977), p. 114.