The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

372 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
or (b) echoes traditional interpretations of Scripture found in one or
other of the Targumim, or (c) links in with other more or less contemporary
historical material known to be available in written
sources.
At this point it may be useful to take some examples from the New
Testament and work through them, using whatever objective evidence
is available, be it linguistic, midrashic or historical.
(1) In Lk. 21.20-24, in the Lukan version of the Synoptic 'Little
Apocalypse', we have some very precise references to the destruction
of Jerusalem. In 19.43 it is stated that Jerusalem's enemies will throw
up a siege-wall around it, and encircle it from every side. The thought
is continued in 21.20-24, where Jerusalem, surrounded by armies, is
on the verge of destruction, its people killed or taken into captivity,
'and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times
of the Gentiles are completed'. Here the term 'the Gentiles' clearly
refers to the Romans. For a rather similar use of the term, the letter
from the administrators of Beth-Mashko to Yeshua ben Galgula (Mur
42.5) reads: '...were the Gentiles not approaching us, I should have
gone up...'. 21 Again, Yigael Yadin reported that in the Bar Kokhba
correspondence, the Romans are referred to by name only once, elsewhere
being known as 'the Gentiles' (D'wan). 22 Further, there is the
intriguing passage on crucifixion, in HQTemple 64. [6-9], 9-11. The
first part of this, 64.6-9, is really related to the established case in
Deut. 21.22-23, where the person convicted of a capital crime is executed
and thereafter 'hung upon a tree'. In 64.9-11, however, the
person is alive when hung up on the tree, if we press the order of the
verbs here: 'And if a man commit a crime worthy of death and flee to
the midst of the Gentiles, and curse his people, the children of Israel,
then you shall also hang him on the tree and he shall die...'. 23
21. DJD 2, p. 158.
22. 'Expedition D', IEJ 11 (1961), pp. 36-51, 46, commenting on an Aramaic
letter, which he terms No. 11, and which, unlike the rest of the Bar Kokhba correspondence,
calls the Romans rrnim, instead of 'the Gentiles' (D'twr).
23. HQTemple 84.9-11:
10
11