The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

SHINAN The Aggadah of the Palestinian Tar gums 213
2 rgumic Traditions without Parallels
Any list of parallels between Targum and the whole of rabbinic literature
will indicate scores of aggadic traditions appearing in Targum
alone. At times, research has been unable to find parallels not only
in the rabbinic literature but even in compositions external to the
world of the sages, comb though we may the Dead Sea scrolls,
the works of Philo and of Josephus, or the writings of the church
fathers.
Two examples are especially prominent here. The first one is an
elaborate tradition recurring in manuscript Neofiti and its margins, in
the Pseudo-Jonathan and also in various manuscripts of the Fragment
Targum to the stories of the blasphemer (Lev. 24.12); the second
passover (Num. 9.11); the man gathering sticks on the sabbath day
(Num. 15.34); and the daughters of Zelophehad (Num. 27.5):
Neofiti to Leviticus 24.12:
i (= This was one of the four legal cases that came
up before Moses, and he decided them according to God's view; in two
of them Moses was quick, and in two of them Moses was slow. In
[the judgment of] impure persons who were not able to do the Passover,
and in the judgment of the daughters of Zelophehad Moses was quick,
because their cases were civil cases. [In the judgment] of him who
gathering wood desecrated the sabbath wilfully, and [in the judgment]
of the blasphemer who expressed His Holy Name with blasphemies
Moses was slow, because their cases were capital cases, and to teach
the judges who would rise up after Moses to be quick in civil cases
and slow in capital cases...and that they should not be ashamed to
say: 'we did not hear [it]'; since Moses their Master, said 'I did not hear
[it]').
For this tradition, and to this extent, we have yet to find a real parallel
outside of the Aramaic Targums to the Pentateuch. Of course, it may
very well be buried in some composition not yet discovered. But for
now, the judge can only go by what is seen, and that is a lengthy and