The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

TARGUM MANUSCRIPTS AND CRITICAL EDITIONS
Luis Diez Merino
1. Introduction
The Apographs
At the very beginning of a written transmission of a text are the
apographs: the original copy made by the author of the text. We know
no original author of any Targum (despite names like Onqelos,
Jonathan, Pseudo-Jonathan, Joseph the Blind). After the apographs in
the written transmission come the MSS: one MS is copied from
another, and this is the beginning of the chain of textual transmission.
This new stage of transmission has many items: one is constituted by
the families of MSS ('Stemma Codicum') that shows the global history
of a book, depending either on textual traditions, or on scribal
schools, or on centuries of transmission. This view shows a panoramic
sketch of the copies stemming from an original. With this program in
mind it is possible to choose the best MS as a basic text and those
exemplars which should be quoted in the critical apparatus. Here however,
we must confess that each book of the Targums has its own
tradition, and that there is not one Targum, but a series of Targums,
each one with its own history. Although laws had been promulgated
against the written transmission of the Targums, it is conceivable that
the Aramaic translation was used before any such law was enacted. 1
Perhaps this law has never been observed. And we have an additional
problem: the Targum that seemed to be the last (Targum
Hagiographa), now appears to be first (Targum Job from Qumran).
Targum researchers have tried to hypothesize about the possible
beginning of the different Targums, although they recognize that
'there is no first-hand evidence of extant specimens of very early
Targumim, but there are indications of their existence soon after the
1. y. Meg. 4.1