The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

GROSSFELD Onqelos, Halakha and the Halakhic Midrashim 239
favour of those who advocated conciseness.
Thus, the existence of the Halakha in the Targum is based at times
on the knowledge of the masses of the Halakhic implication rather
than the literal meaning of a particular verse. For example,
Exod. 23.19—'do not boil a kid in its mother's milk' was known to
the masses by its meaning which bans the simultaneous consumption of
meat and milk. Consequently, the Targum renders it 'do not eat meat
and milk together'. Yet on account of the prevailing tendency of conciseness,
the Halakhically extended ban affecting the act of 'boiling'
and 'benefiting' was not incorporated into the Targumic translations
of Exod. 34.26 and Deut. 14.21. 36 Likewise, for Exod. 13.16,
Lev. 23.40 and Deut. 24.3. 37 Precisely because these Halakhic interpretations
were well known to the masses, no elaborate expansion was
necessary.
2. Description of Halakhic Midrashim
The Tannaitic Midrashim are, as is well known, compilations of
comments by the early Talmudic authorities on the last four books of
the Pentateuch—Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael on Exodus, the Sifra or
Torat Kohanim on Leviticus, the Sifre on Numbers, and
Deuteronomy. They have come down to us in two groups, the one
(Sifra and Sifre to Deuteronomy) from the School of R. Aqiba, the
other (Mek. and Sifre to Numbers) from the opposing School of
R. Ishmael. In attributing the Midrashim to either the schools of
R. Aqiba or R. Ishmael there is first the well-known statement in the
Babylonian Talmud (Sanh. 86a):
'R. Johanan said: [The author of] an anonymous Mishna is R. Meir; of an
anonymous Tosefta, R. Nehemiah; of an anonymous [dictum in the]
Sifra, R. Judah, in the Sifre, R. Simeon; and all are taught according to
the views of R. Aqiba' (as all of the above Rabbis were disciples of
R. Aqiba).
36. For the former Onq. has ±rn isn jto'n tf?, for the latter it reads VDTI «•?
zftru ion .
37. In the first case, Hebrew nscDio = Onq. p^'sn; in the second Hebrew pa 'is
ma pa *i3ai nnon nsD nn = Onq. pirn pu^i pnnK; and in the third, Hebrew
mrriD iso = Onq. picas BJ.