The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

64 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
nature. In cases where we have not yet found MSS for a concrete
book, for example in the Yemenite tradition for many Targums to the
Hagiographa, this is also a very different task.
Western tradition. We can establish two directions in the study of
these traditions (Eastern-Western): the first aspect—as stated above—
attends to their content; we said that generally the Western tradition is
more abundant in its narratives, and the Eastern is more sober. The
extended transmission of such texts has another element: the mixture
of linguistic features. If we take the not always correct parameters of
Dalman's exposition, 31 we realize that often expressions from an
Eastern language have been introduced into the Western expressions,
and—although in a lesser measure—in the Eastern models expressions
of the Western language have been introduced. The most interesting
element in this Western question is that we now possess some exemplars
of the complete Bible, for example, the MS Urbinati I with the
complete text; by contrast, in the Eastern tradition we only have some
parts in different MSS, but not the whole tradition in the same
exemplar.
According to their linguistic tradition. In the preceding paragraph I
referred to the contents of the Targum traditions; now that we come
to another item, we are concerned with the material transmission in
(each) way of expression. There are special linguistic schemas with
which the same language can be transmitted; but it depends not only
on the pragmatic signs of vocalization, but also on the cultural and
psychological ways of concrete linguistic achievement.
Babylonian. Two researchers have been working on this Aramaic
tradition. 1) A. Dfez Macho by 1971 had published 17 articles on the
Babylonian Aramaic tradition: 32 his practical contribution to the
31. G. Dalman, Grammatik des Jiidisch-palastinischen Aramaisch (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, repr., 1960 [1905]), pp. 44-51.
32. His bibliography: A. Dfez Macho, 'Magister-Minister. Prof. P.E. Kahle
through twelve years of correspondence', in Recent Progress in Biblical Scholarship
(Oxford, 1965), pp. 45-47; idem, Manuscritos hebreos y arameos de la Biblia.
Contribucion al estudio de las diversas tradiciones del texto del Antigua Testamento
(Roma: Institutum Patristicum 'Augustinianum', 1971), 47s; his most complete
bibliography in L. Dfez Merino, 'Alejandro Dfez Macho. Datos biogrdficos y