The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

432 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
be assessed as to possible ancient Jewish origins. On the other hand,
those studying medieval texts need to be alerted to the results of study
of the Pseudepigrapha and the character of their transmission. This
perspective can benefit the study both of the the Pseudepigrapha and
of the mediaeval tradition.
The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday
The first instance of the intertwining of Western and Eastern traditions
that I encountered was in connection with a text called Fifteen
Signs of the Doomsday or The Signs of the Judgment. I was working
through the Catalogue of Manuscripts of the Armenian Patriarchate of
Jerusalem, when I came across two copies of a document, attributed to
'the Jews', which listed fifteen signs that will take place before the end
of days. 2 Imagining that I had come across a piece of ancient Jewish
literature, I commenced to investigate this document and quickly
encountered W.W. Heist's exemplary study, The Fifteen Signs before
Doomsday. 3 Suddenly, what I had fondly imagined to be an unknown
ancient Jewish apocalyptic fragment preserved uniquely in Armenian
turned into an unusual oriental witness to a document extant in very
numerous European versions. The picture was further complicated
when a colleague in Jerusalem was kind enough to direct my attention
to a Hebrew translation of the same text, extant in the unique
manuscript which contains the Chronicle of Jerahmeel (Oxford
Bodleian Heb d.ll). 4 In this Hebrew manuscript, The Signs of the
Judgment was connected with some extracts from Pseudo-Philo's
Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, in Hebrew translation. 5
2. The texts were printed by N. Bogharian, Grand Catalogue of St James
Manuscripts (Jerusalem: St James Press, 1969) 6.40-42 (Jerusalem, Ms J1729 of
1741 CE) and ibid, 248-254 (Jerusalem, Ms J1861 of 1669 CE). Archbishop
Bogharian, with his usual extraordinary acumen, chose to print these texts in full.
3. W.W. Heist, The Fifteen Signs before Doomsday (East Lansing: Michigan
State College, 1952).
4. A. Neubauer and A.E. Cowley, Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the
Bodleian Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1906), II, cols. 209-215
discuss the manuscript in some detail.
5. Most parts of the Hebrew translation of Pseudo-Philo, Liber Antiquitatum
Biblicarum, which is embedded in the Chronicle of Jerahmeel had already been
published in D.J. Harrington (ed.), The Hebrew Fragments of Pseudo-Philo
(Missoula MT: Scholars Press, 1974).