The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

216 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
way there will come forth a swarm of worms from the excrement of the
heifer, and spread forward and move to the place where the murderer is,
and crawl over him: and the court shall take him, and judge him).
Indeed, of all our ancient sources, only Pseudo-Jonathan apprehends
the criminal with this kind of signs and wonders. 29
It appears to me that these examples are sufficient for attempting a
general explanation of the whys and wherefores of targumic traditions
without parallels. Seemingly, there are two options for describing
each and every one of these traditions: (a) tradition unique to Targum
is nothing but a tradition once common to rabbinic composition but
now lost and unknown; or, it is a rabbinic tradition transmitted orally,
having left for some reason or other no written echo except in
Targum. (b) A tradition unique to Targum is...a tradition unique to
Targum. Or perhaps a folk tradition that, for some unknown reason,
never fully penetrated the world of Bet Midrash, and that only the
Meturgeman saw fit to inscribe. This possibility infuses Targum with
the motifs of folklore and popular belief then hovering just beyond
the traditional four ells of synagogue and Bet Midrash. Much more so
than the rabbinic literature, even though this, too, is assuredly less
than sealed fast against the sway of popular notions.
Scholars who dealt with this issue tended to assume, as I mentioned
earlier, that the first possibility is the principal one. According to this
opinion, the Targums are leaning on traditions gleaned from the tip of
rabbinic tongues; only by sheer chance has memory of them come
our way. To me it seems clear that choosing between the two abovementioned
possibilities is not simple, and that each case must surely
stand and fall on its own merit. Nonetheless, a verdict there must be,
as is obvious to anyone dealing with the rabbinic world of beliefs and
opinions, or anyone interested in the folk literature of ancient Jewry.
Each tradition of Aggadah will have to be broached separately and in
the most exacting detail, without preconceptions, and on a firm basis
of language, content, literary form, goals and the like. Such an examination
is likely to produce a different response for each and every
tradition. But let us remember: a targumic tradition of Aggadah that
is consummately un-targumic—even if without parallels beyond the
world of Targum—must have drawn from the literature of Aggadah
and Midrash! Only a targumic tradition of Aggadah that does not
29. Cf. Shinan, Embroidered Targum, pp. 189-190.