The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

150 The Aramaic Bible: Tar gums in their Historical Context
There are some important linguistic phenomena that support this
conclusion.
In the sketch that follows, I make three methodological assumptions
that may well be challenged, but that I think are defensible: (1) to
consider only the consonantal form of the text of Onqelos and
Jonathan for a basis of linguistic study; (2) to consider the present
state of Onqelos and Jonathan as representing, by and large, the original
text; that is, I make no presupposition in favor of a Proto-Onqelos;
and (3) to take the origin of Onqelos and Jonathan as preceding 200
CE as a given, based on the existence of variant reading traditions
from Nehardea, which ceased to exist in 256 CE. That places these
Targums in the context of Middle Aramaic, not in Late Aramaic.
First of all, let us examine the system of independent personal pronouns,
as in the following chart:
Qumran Palmyrene Syriac Onq/Jon
'nth 'nt 'a(n)t 'at
'nwn him hnwn/'nwn 'innun
'nhn' ?? (ana)hnan 'anahna
Onqelos and Jonathan's 2nd masc. sing, pronoun is closer to that of
Palmyrene and Syriac (and Babylonian) than the more archaic form
of Qumran Aramaic, while the 3rd masc. pi. form is more like the
Qumran Aramaic form than the /z-initial forms of the other two
dialects, which use the aleph-initial form as a direct object only. The
1st common plural pronoun of Qumran Aramaic and Onqelos/
Jonathan is a common survival from an older period.
We can also examine the demonstrative pronouns. All the post-
Official Aramaic dialects go their own way in this system:
Qumran Palmyrene Syriac Onq/Jon
dn dnh hn' dyn/hdyn
dh dh hd' d'/hd'
'In 'In hlyn 'lyn/h'lyn
Onqelos and Jonathan's system here in one respect follows the
Western Qumran dialect, in another that of Syriac. Onqelos and
Jonathan use the forms without prefixed ha- in a nominative function;
this series matches the Qumran series. But it uses the /za-bearing
forms in the attributive function (except in the frozen form yoma den,
'today'). In the Middle Aramaic period only Syriac and Hatran use the