The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

NORTON Jews, Greeks and the Hexapla of Origen 419
hexapla: the expanding of the semantic fields of the Old Greek translation
takes place much more naturally within the one language. The
Greek-speaking user would not necessarily have had any interest in
which Aramaic words were used in an oral translation of the Hebrew.
Origen himself had no interest in including the Targums in his synopsis
from a quantitative point of view. Qualitatively they did not
obviously add anything to his discussion.
Concluding Comments
Some day perhaps we will know more about the library of Caesarea
and its relationship with the communities there. The Hexapla was
executed by Christian hands and remained a Christian work of reference.
Yet the Hexapla is not an essentially Christian work in any other
sense. In spite of this, there is no record of consultation of the Hexapla
by a Jew. The reason for this was not so much restriction on access to
the library as lack of interest. In fact although it is not impossible that
such a work of comparison between the Hebrew proto-Masoretic text
and the various Greek translations in use in Palestine could have been
carried out in a Jewish context, neither is it probable. The groups
within the Jewish community were not so much in debate with one
another concerning their Greek texts, as they were concerned to bring
the Greek text into line with the proto-Masoretic text, as a repository
of meaning to be interpreted. The focus of interest was not in the
comparison of one Greek text with another, but in the provision of a
Greek text that would be an adequate translation of the Hebrew.
Although the problem had its roots in Jewish history, liturgy and
culture, its resolution was more a problem for Christians than it was
for the Jewish community.