The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

BOCCACCINI Targum Neofiti as a Proto-Rabbinic Document 263
this idea is among those more harshly rejected by Trypho in Justin's
Dialogue (79.1).
6. The Myth of Common Judaism
Another myth of modern interpreters is that Targums voice the
general ideas of first-century Jews—grassroots documents voicing a
sort of neutral liturgical or synagogal Judaism. 16 The existence of
such common Judaism is made improbable by the pluralism of
Judaisms of the time. 17 Even if we wanted to try and define a
common-denominator Judaism in the first century, it would certainly
be very far from that portrayed in rabbinic Targums. The oldest of
these, Neofiti, is one century later and its system, as a whole, reflects
the ideology only of one branch of Judaism—early rabbinic Judaism.
Traditions in Neofiti either were unknown in the first century, or
were not universally shared, or had a different relevance in the many
Judaisms of the time.
Parallels among documents do not mean dependence or agreement.
We face rival movements in Judaism which, starting from the same
unsolved questions and using the same material, built different and
incompatible systems. Each one gave to the common bricks of their
common religious tradition a different role and a different rank.
Source-criticism and parallels reveal the raw matter; ideological relations
among the many Judaisms can be defined only through a holistic
comparison of documents and ideological systems. 18
16. On the contrary, Targums are highly sophisticated and ideologically oriented
documents. This is what York also suggests when he claims that 'in discussing the
origin and purpose of the Targum we should widen our horizon to include the school
as well as the synagogue as the raison d'etre for the Targum' (A.D. York, 'The
Targum in the Synagogue and in the School', JSJ 10 [1979], pp. 74-86).
17. See P. Sacchi, Storia del mondo giudaico (Torino, 1976); J. Neusner,
Judaism in the Beginning of Christianity (Philadelphia, 1984); A.J. Saldarini,
Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach
(Wilmington, DE, 1988); J. Maier, Zwischen den Testamenten. Geschichte und
Religion in der Zeit des zweiten Tempels (Munich, 1990); Boccaccini, Middle
Judaism.
18. See G. Boccaccini, 'Middle Judaism and its Contemporary Interpreters
(1986-1992): Methodological Foundations for the Study of Judaisms, 300 BCE to
200 CE', Henoch 15 (1993), pp. 207-33.