The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

416 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
(Epiphanius, De mens. et pond. 19)
Motivations Other than Quantitative-Apologetic for the Preparation
of the Hexapla
There is a contrast between the quantitative comparison of texts used
by Jews and Christians which was the stated reason for the undertaking
the Hexapla, and the almost antiquarian collector's curiosity
combined with the perfectionist's desire for all-inclusiveness displayed
in the execution of the work. If the primary aims were (a) to note
which texts in the Greek used by the church did not have equivalent
elements in the Greek texts used by the Jewish interlocutors (texts
which had the Hebrew text as a touchstone), and (b) in a subsidiary
way to supply a reliable Greek text for the Christian Hellenophones of
Hebrew texts not hitherto used in their translations, then there would
be no need to assemble obscure and almost lost versions such as the
Quinta and Sexta and possibly Septima of the Psalter, found by chance
or purchased in obscure cities. Eusebius was already aware of this
aspect (Eccl. Hist. 6.16). The Jews in apologetic discussion were
unlikely to base any argument on these obscure texts! Some of the
better known revisions were already in the middle of the third century
viewed askance by the Jewish community, as for example,
Symmachus, and perhaps Theodotion, once the name of Aquila had
been linked to a Greek text.
The apologetic aspect of the enterprise should not be advocated to
the exclusion of other motivations. Origen tells Africanus (Letter to
Africanus, 9) hat he has expended considerable effort in understanding
the sense of different editions in use among the Jews in order
to understand in what they differed among one another and from the
Septuagint. It seems clear from this and from the practice of Origen
and those who used hexaplaric material after him that the qualitative
issues were not polemic ones for Origen but were seen as a rich
resource for exposition.
Neuschafer has studied Origen's use of the variants recorded in the
columns of the Hexapla and concluded that he harmonizes the qualitative
differences found in the varous Greek columns without a priori