The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

418 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
the implication that Origen and his contemporaries were somehow
functioning in bad faith. I wonder if this discussion about the literalness
of the Jewish community is not tied essentially to the value which
in the Jewish community was placed in a particular form of the
Hebrew text, and translations were judged, and altered on the grounds
of their relationship to this central Hebrew text? The Christian view,
partly because of the greater difficulty of access to the Hebrew text,
was more eclectic.
Linked to this value given to a fixed text is the rise of allegorical
interpretation, which in spite of Christian polemic was alive and well
in Jewish circles. In fact Akiba's exegesis is just as free and fluid as
that of Ishmael. Yet it is Akiba who insists that every letter, particle
and peculiarity of orthography of the Torah (in Hebrew of course)
held a deeper meaning which could be unlocked by the rules of exegesis.
Once that kind of meaning is attributed to the Hebrew form of
the text, the interpreter is freer to expand, for he is already involved
in the process of explanation as in the commentaries of the Pesher of
Habakkuk. This is the key to the differences between Targum and
Greek translation.
A Columnar Comparison of the Targums?
Reflecting for a moment on the parallel phenomenon of Targum and
Septuagint revisions, we may ask why a columnar comparison of
Targums was never undertaken. Why did Origen not include any
Targum in his Hexapla, or even mention it specifically in his discussion
of texts? It was not in the interests of Origen to compare the
Targum, for it was seen as of an inferior status to the Hebrew, and it
is in part for the status of the Greek as sacred writ that Origen is
arguing.
There are in fact many possible reasons which may be summarized
under such headings as: the expense of the enterprise, the lack of a
particular controversy for which such a synopsis would have been
useful, the relationship between Targum and Hebrew text, and perhaps
crucially, the distinction between the place occupied by the Targum
and by the Greek translations in the community. We may also cite a
factor of chronological coincidence. The texts compared must be seen
as important at the same time, in the same community; otherwise one
is seen simply to have superseded the other. A further element is the
second motivation mentioned by Origen in the compilation of his own