The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

TARGUM NEOFTTI AS A PROTO-RABBINIC DOCUMENT:
A SYSTEMIC ANALYSIS
Gabriele Boccaccini
1. Tar gums as Part of Rabbinic Literature
Targums are part of rabbinic literature and need to be studied within
that literary and ideological framework. 1 All the documents of rabbinic
literature present a peculiar mixture of ancient and new traditions
and offer an amazing number of parallels among themselves and
with documents also belonging to other forms of Judaism, including
early Christianity. 2 Some of the traditions contained in rabbinic documents
look very ancient: some actually are, some certainly are not so
ancient as they pretend. Parallels are equally placed on a span of one
thousand years in apparent disregard of any chronological order and
1. 'La litterature targumique n'est qu'une partie de I'immense litterature
rabbinique; elle ne peut s'etudier qu'en reference constante avec les diverses parties
de celle-ci, dans le cadre de son developpment, en tenant compte de 1'evolution des
doctrines etc.' (R. le Deaut, Introduction a la litterature targumique [Rome, 1966],
p. 7). See also J. Bowker, The Targums and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge,
1969).
2. For an analysis of parallels to rabbinic Targums, see E. Levine, 'The
Aggadah in Targum Jonathan ben Uzziel and Neofiti 1', in Ms Neophyti 1 (ed.
A. Diez Macho; 5 vols.; Madrid, 1968-78), II, pp. 537-78, III, pp. 419-515, IV,
pp. 645-707, V, pp. 575-629; M. Kasher, Torah Shelemah, Vol. 24: Targumey ha-
Torah (Jerusalem, 1974); A. Shinan, The Aggadah in the Aramaic Targums to the
Pentateuch [Hebrew] (2 vols.; Jerusalem, 1979); B. Grossfeld, An Analytic
Commentary of the Targum Neofiti to Genesis: Including Full Rabbinic Parallels
(New York, 1992). The relationships between Targums and the New Testament are
obviously of primary importance for biblical scholars; see M. Black, An Aramaic
Approach to the Gospel and Acts (Oxford, 1946; 2nd edn, 1954; 3rd edn, 1967);
M. McNamara, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch
(Rome, 1966, repr. 1978); idem, Targum and Testament (Shannon, 1972);
B. Chilton, Targumic Approaches to the Gospels (Lanham, 1986).