The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

FLESHER Mapping the Synoptic Palestinian Targums 249
fragments. If we consider that B.H. Streeter's classic analysis of the
Synoptic Gospels—just three books—covered over 500 pages, then a
similar analysis of the Palestinian Targums would take well over
3,000 pages. 2 Over the past decade, however, I have developed a more
economical way to provide a picture of the synoptic links among the
Palestinian Targums. This study, currently in its final stages, delineates
a synoptic map that reveals both the shared characteristics of the
Palestinian Targums and each Targum's individual nature. 3
Given my time constraints, let me give just a brief description of
the project's method. My approach focuses on the additional material—which
I call expansions—placed into the Targums' translation of
specific verses. Because of their added character, the expansions by
definition reveal the relationships among the Targums; analysis of the
translation, by contrast, often stands in danger of showing only the
Targums' relationships to scripture. To ensure the identification of
every expansion, I have developed a straightforward definition: a
verse contains an expansion if it has at least seven more words than
the Hebrew text. Once the expansions have been located, I then check
each one for parallels in the other Palestinian Targums. Such parallel
expansions occur when two or more Targums have the same concepts
added into the verse, whether or not they use the same wording. The
expansions—both shared and unique—are finally tallied, providing a
map of the Targums' synoptic relationships.
The synoptic map created through this process is quite informative,
revealing information about the character of the Palestinian Targums
of the Pentateuch as well as each individual Targum. Let us look first
at the Targums' shared nature. The expansions fall into two
classifications, which Avigdor Shinan has characterized quite succinctly.
The first 'consists of aggadic traditions connected to a particular
verse which are common to all or most of the extant targumic
texts while the remaining texts to the same verse lack aggadic expansion'.
4 That is to say, if a verse in one Targum contains an expansion,
the other Targums, if they have an expansion at all, will have the same
2. B.H. Streeter, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins (London: Macmillan,
1930).
3. The study is tentatively titled, The Synoptic Targums: Sources of the
Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch and will be ready for press in 1995.
4. A. Shinan, 'The "Palestinian" Targums—Repetitions, Internal Unity,
Contradictions', JJS 36 (1985), p. 73.