The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

NORTON Jews, Greeks and the Hexapla of Origen 403
Greek Translations and Aramaic Targums in a Context of Palestinian
Linguistic Diversity
The Greek translations of the Old Testament provide a part of the
historical and cultural context in which the Targums were made. They
provided a precedent for a translation of the Hebrew text. This does
not necessarily mean that Rabin is totally wrong when he suggests that
the targumic activity in Palestine, although not the Targum as a literary
work, inspired the Septuagint undertaking. 7 However, I agree
with Brock that effectively the initiative of translation of the
Septuagint was without known precedent, as an enterprise of translation
of religious texts in the ancient world. 8 We are now agreed that
the translation of the Septuagint took place as a result of an authoritative
decision, and that the origin was not similar to that of the
Targums, which see a series of oral translations superseded by a
written one, as bilingualism became more limited.
One of the effects of the traditions surrounding the Hexapla was the
implication that the revisions of the Septuagint were of a small, known
quantity, attributable to historically identifiable individuals. The consensus
that Kahle's theory of the origin of the Septuagint as a Targum
is to be rejected further strengthened this view. Yet if, on the one
hand, our archeological discoveries, and our re-readings of the
manuscripts have shown us that the Septuagint originated as a single
translation, they have also shown us that the history of the revisions of
the Greek translation is more complex than hitherto realized. The
information transmitted concerning the mysterious Sexta and improbable
Septima, and even the elusive Quinta had already implied this. It
now seems that we must recognize the existence of all kinds of shading
in the translation and its revisions.
Early Use of the Septuagint Translation
Whatever the relationship between its use and the reason for its fabrication
may be, the official Greek translation of the Torah made in
7. C. Rabin, The Translation Process and the Character of the Septuagint',
Textus 6 (1968), pp. 1-27.
8. S.P. Brock, 'The Phenomenon of the Septuagint', in The Witness of
Tradition (Oudtestamentische Studien 17; Leiden: Brill, 1972), pp. 11-36.