The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

NORTON Jews, Greeks and the Hexapla of Origen 407
Hebrew recital in the synagogues, but not the Greek translation of
other books.
Translations and the Proto-Masoretic Text
The diversity of translations and revisions of translations used in
Palestine in the first three centuries of our era was directly related to
the adoption by the rabbinate of a particular model of Hebrew text as
a canon, or principle by which all other texts were to be measured.
This chosen Hebrew text was not quantitatively or qualitatively identical
with the Hebrew text from which the first Greek translations had
been made. It was not a new text, but a text type that has already been
valued in certain circles in Palestine. Barthelemy's hypothesis that this
text had effectively been imposed and alternative Hebrew texts suppressed
by the revolt of Bar Kochba has not yet been disproved, even
if we admit that the textual type of the fragments from Wadi
Muraba'at is perhaps too narrow a base for the theory to be
considered as logically copper-fastened.
The attempts to improve the Greek text to make it conform more
closely to the model proposed were intensified at the time when one
textual type was chosen by the rabbinate. But if the analysis and dating
of the Greek Minor Prophets scroll from Nahal Hever is correct,
these alterations of the text had begun in Palestine even before the
adoption of the proto-Masoretic text. At this time, then, we already
have reason to doubt that the Greek text of the Minor Prophets was
seen as a sacred text in its own right prepared with divine assistance.
It was considered primarily as a translation, an indication for the
faithful who could not read Hebrew of what was in the Hebrew text, a
concession, but in no way a replacement for the Hebrew text of the
Minor Prophets.
The movement which led to the Aramaic Targum can in fact be
compared with profit to the work of Aquila, Symmachus, and
Theodotion in Palestine. One way of distinguishing between Greek
translation and Targum is that the first is orientated towards the fixed
text while the Targum is orientated towards the congregation. The
comparison is not quite true, because the Greek revisers in regard to
the Torah at least also have an eye to the correction of a (Greek) text
viewed as authoritative. The simple fact that there was an earlier
authoritative translation in existence influenced the revisers of the