The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

ALEXANDER The Targum of the Song of Songs 335
fundamental to the rabbinic world-view. Formally they do not reach a
closure, since in principle one could go on indefinitely adding further
material on the same theme. Targum Shir ha-Shirim has a coherent
theology, but it has more than that: it has also an exegetical schema
which is applied to the biblical text with great daring and skill from
the beginning of the book to the end.
A very considerable body of early rabbinic commentary on the
Song of Songs is extant, but nowhere can I find a schema comparable
to that in Targum Shir ha-Shirim. Three substantial midrashim have
survived intact. The largest of these is Midrash Hazita, better known
as Shir ha-Shirim Rabba. 20 There is also Aggadat Shir ha-Shirim.
Buber first published this work from the Parma ms, De Rossi 541, in
1894. This edition was poorly done. Schechter's rather better transcription
of the same manuscript appeared two years later under the
title Aggadat Shir ha-Shirim. 21 Subsequently a fragmentary copy of
the work was identified among the Geniza fragments in St Petersburg
and published by Rabinovitz in Ginze Midrash.22 The third early
commentary on the Song of Songs is Midrash Shir ha-Shirim, which
Griinhut published in 1897 from a Geniza manuscript which can now
no longer be traced. 23 The Geniza has also yielded two further fragments,
which appear to represent two further midrashim on the Song
of Songs. 24 In addition to all this there are the exegeses of the Song
scattered throughout the two Talmuds and the midrashim devoted to
the other books of the Bible. 25 We have, then, an abundance of
exegesis with which to compare the Targum. However, in none of the
other expositions is the Targum's consistent, historical reading of the
Song to be found. The three large midrashim are all anthological in
character and record different interpretations of the different verses.
20. H.E. Steller and M.C. Steller-Kalff are preparing a critical edition of Shir
ha-Shirim Rabba. For this article I have consulted the standard printed edition (Vilna,
1878).
21. S. Buber, Midrasch Suta: Hagadische Abhandlungen fiber Schir ha-Schirim,
Ruth, Echah und Koheleth (Berlin, 1894); S, Schechter, Agadath Shir Hashirim,
edited from a Parma Manuscript (Cambridge, 1896).
22. Z.M. Rabinovitz, Ginze Midrash (Tel-Aviv, 1976), pp. 250-95.
23. I. Grunhut, Midrasch Schir ha-Schirim (Jerusalem, 1897).
24. J. Mann, 'Some Midrashic Genizah Fragments', HUCA 14 (1939), pp. 333-
7, and Mann, Texts and Studies, I (Cincinnati, 1930), p. 322 n. 47a.
25. Most of this material can be gleaned from A. Hyman and A.B. Hyman,
Torah Hakethubah Vehamessurah, III (Tel-Aviv, 2nd edn, 1979), pp. 176-85.