The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

324 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
Rabba the 'wine' suggests the libations and the 'milk' (halav) the fatportions
(halavini) of the sacrificial victims; for the Targum both
'wine' and 'milk' suggest libations—the former red wine, the latter
white wine. The Targum here, surely, has the exegetical edge, and
provides the more coherent reading, since one can hardly 'drink' the
fat-portions of the sacrificial animals. The Targum, by the way, is at
variance here with Bava Batra 97b, which states that white wine was
not used for libations. I am not, however, persuaded by Melamed's
argument that this constitutes a misunderstanding of the talmudic text,
and so demonstrates the reliance of the Targum on the Talmud. 11
Finally, note at the end how Shir Rabba distinguishes the 'friends'
from the 'lovers', and takes the drunkenness literally, whereas the
Targum identifies both the 'friends' and the 'lovers' with the priests
and takes drunkenness as a metaphor for enjoyment.
Most of the parallels are of this kind, so that even if we concede that
the parallels are the sources of the Targum, we must acknowledge that
the Targumist does not take over the traditions unchanged, but finesses
them in clever ways, often providing a better reasoned, more consistent
reading of the biblical text.
Translational Parallels
The translational category of parallels is rather different from the
aggadic, in that translational parallels, in principle at least, offer a
better chance of establishing a close relationship between Targum Shir
ha-Shirim and other texts, and thus of identifying genuine sources for
the Targum. For example, suppose we find that Targum Shir ha-
Shirim consistently translates certain distinctive Hebrew words and
phrases in the same way as Onqelos, then we may well suspect that our
targumist knew Onqelos and has used him as a source. This argument
will, of course, be strengthened, if, at least in some cases, the
Palestinian Targumim differ from Onqelos in their choice of vocabulary
or idiom.
In applying this approach to Targum Shir ha-Shirim we should distinguish
between primary and secondary translation. Primary translation
is direct translation of the Hebrew text of Shir ha-Shirim which
11. Melamed, Targum Canticles', p. 211. Actually, Melamed's argument is not
altogether clear. He lists this as an example of the targumist misremembering the
talmudic texts. See further Silber, Sedeh Jerusalem, ad he.