The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

DiEZ MERINO Targum Manuscripts and Critical Editions 53
this important discovery'. 6 S. Schulz, referring to Neophyti, wrote:
'das aufregendste Ereignis auf dem Gebiet der Targumsforschung'. 7
In the history of the Aramaic translations (and also in the Hebrew
text), three parts are clearly distinguished: the Pentateuch as the most
honorable part, the Prophets as venerated in second place, and the
Hagiographa—a group with certain problems regarding its identity
which stretched beyond the Yavne assembly, into the Talmudic era,
when we are told about the uncertainty of the Jewish canon of the
scriptures (i.e. whether to include Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes8).
The following premise must be adequately evaluated when we are
considering the Aramaic translations: if the Hebrew Bible had been
translated in its first (Pentateuch: Lev) and third part (Hagiographa:
Job) at the time of the Qumran MSS, then we may think that many
other books had been translated into Aramaic during that era,
although manuscripts of these have not appeared to date, and maybe
never will appear. We might also think that wherever the Jews had
been concentrated in bigger communities in the Diaspora, and had
adopted a foreign language, they had also tried to translate the Hebrew
Bible into their own languages. Until now we only know of the
example of the Greek Jewish community of Alexandria, which in the
fourth century BCE had asked permission to translate the sacred
books, centuries before the Palestine teachers had finished their discussions
about the Jewish canon of the scriptures. The Septuagint
offers a clear idea of a Jewish canon, before the official Palestinian
canon of the Bible: the Greek translators of Alexandria accepted the
books sent from Jerusalem and they translated them. 9 Further, we
may also think of an Aramaic version of the Bible for the Jews in
Elephantine, 10 where we know that they spoke Aramaic in the midst
6. Cf. A. Diez Macho, Neophyti 1, Targum Palestinense MS de la Biblioteca
Vaticana, 1.1 Genesis (Madrid-Barcelona: CSIC, 1968), p. 35*.
7. S. Schulz, 'Die Bedeutung der Neuen Targumforschung fur die Synoptische
Tradition', in Abraham Unser Vater. Festschrift fiir Otto Michel zum 60. Geburtstag
(ed. O. Betz, M. Hengel and P. Schmidt; Leiden-Koln, 1963), pp. 425-36.
8. m. Yad. 3.5.
9. The story about the Septuagint transmitted in the descriptions of Aristeas'
Letter is meaningless; cf. P.E. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1959), pp. 209ff.
10. Their documents have been published, although not completely: A.E. Cowley,
Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford, 1923); E.G. Kraeling, The
Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri (New Haven, 1953); G.R. Driver, Aramaic