The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

238 The Aramaic Bible: The Targums in their Historical Context
Consequently, a process was started by which explanatory notes were
inserted into the Targum.
With the widespread growth and popularity of the midrashic
interpretations of the Torah, an effort was initiated to intersperse
these within the Targum, in order to create within the Targum an area
where the oral law and written law existed in intertwined fashion.
This would result in the Targum functioning simultaneously as the
conveyer of the written law to the masses, as well as its interpretation
through the oral law of midrashic exegesis. To accomplish this goal,
the Targum text was tampered with, to the extent that here and there
Aggadic or Halakhic explanations were inserted, omitted, or altered,
even within literal strands of Onqelos, in order to keep up with new
demands (of the times). Even though, says Churgin, this type of
editing was done slowly and deliberately with great care, it did not
include the entire targumic text, but only certain special passages
which required a change in the Targum in order to point out the correct
intention which lay somewhere in the grey area between
'rendering the verse literally' and 'adding to it'. 34
Among the scholars who were involved in this process were
undoubtedly some whose approach was one of conciseness, while
others were more elaborate. In Churgin's opinion, it was the latter
type who were inclined to expand the Targum with Aggadic and
Halakhic interpretations; and from whom emanated the so-called
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of a much later period. Nevertheless, the
approach of the former type prevailed, resulting in the more concise
Targum Onqelos. This modus operandi, according to Churgin, was
responsible for inconsistencies 35 such as Deut. 22.18 and Deut.
21.18—the former passage being Halakhically rendered 'they should
flog him' and the latter literally 'they should discipline him'. The
insertion of the Halakha in Deut. 22.18 was the result of the blending
of the deliberate process of enlarging the general framework of the
Targum which eventually lost out to the opposing tendency which
emphasized consciseness. Thus the Halakha took hold in one place—
Deut. 22.18, and not in another—Deut. 21.18. Likewise in Exod.
21.24, which Onqelos renders literally as 'an eye for an eye', the
approach of those who emphasized elaborateness was not accepted in
34. Here see t. Meg. IV (III): 4—
35. Both reading in Hebrew im« rio'i.