The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

DlEZ MERINO Targum Manuscripts and Critical Editions 73
Reuchlinlanus has a Palestinian Targum of the Prophets.
It is curious to read Sperber's definition of the Targum of the
Hagiographa: 'transition from translation to Midrash'.53 With this
concept of the Targum he confesses only that he is unable to prepare
an edition of the Targum Hagiographa. The excuse he offers is even
more surprising:
No attempt has been made in this volume to offer the texts published here
in a critical edition, comparable to the first three volumes of this series.
The reason for it is obvious: These texts are not Targum texts but Midrash
texts in the disguise of Targum. Now, whatever opinion scholars may
have of my ability or lack of ability to edit Targum texts, as evidence by
the preceding three volumes, there can be disagreement at all on this point:
that I am utterly unqualified to edit a Midrash text. It simply does not
appeal to me. I only hope that presenting these texts and analyzing them
may not be considered a sheer waste of time and energy! 54
This disqualification of Sperber for publishing Targum texts of the
Hagiographa can be seen when we look at the critical editions of
A. van der Heide (Targum Lamentations), C. Alonso Fontela
(Targum Canticles), F.J. Fernandez Vallina (Targum Job); in these
editions we can see the correct 'stemma codicum', a matter that
Sperber never dreamed of. Simply, Sperber was lost when he had to
start with the Targum of the Hagiographa: he never took account of
the MSS for this part of the Aramaic Bible.
Sperber seems never to have worked on the Palestinian Targums, at
least if we attend to his publications. Therefore his reactions to the
identification of Neophyti are not surprising. When Diez Macho published
some of Sperber's reactions against the authenticity of the
Palestinian Targum discovered in the Neophiti Codex, Sperber was
still alive, and therefore Diez Macho, in the introduction to Neophyti
omits his name (he is referred to as N.N.). 55 Sperber wrote to Diez
Macho in May 1957:
Quite by an accident, I saw today the Sefarad of 1957 and your
announcement of the discovery of a complete text of the Palestinian
Targum on the Pentateuch. The photo there is not enough to reach definite
53. A. Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic. Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed
Texts. IV A. The Hagiographa: transition from translation to Midrash (Leiden: Brill,
1968).
54. Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic IVA, p. viii.
55. Diez Macho, 'Magister—Minister', pp. 20-32.