The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

98 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
Targum text of this Polyglot, albeit there is no further evidence for it
in the Targum of Nahum. 25
This preoccupation of Sperber with the recreation of the original
Targum text partly accounts for his attitude to the vocalization issue,
for he believed that the vocalization offers little or no help in this
regard. 26 As is well-known, Sperber has been faulted for having used
manuscripts that are not representative of the authentic Babylonian
tradition of vocalization, and for having by-passed texts that would
have served his purpose better—notably Vatican Ms Ebr 448 in the
case of Onqelos and Ms 229 of the Jewish Theological Seminary for
the Former Prophets. 27 Furthermore, Genizah fragments preserving
the authentic Babylonian pointing were used only indifferently (and
unvocalized) for the volume on the Former Prophets, and for the
other two volumes not at all. 28 While these fragments could not have
formed the basis of an edition, they could have been cited more
extensively, and presumably the problem of carrying two distinct
systems of vocalization in the apparatus(es) would not have proved
insuperable. Sperber, however, was disinclined to persevere with texts
that were too difficult to read or too fragmentary, especially if they
seemed not to help towards the recovery of the original text of the
'Babylonian' Targums.
IV
When critiquing Sperber's edition of the Targum of the Latter
Prophets some years ago I produced some statistics that showed that
he had achieved a fair degree of accuracy in his reproduction of the
25. On abridgment of the Targum text in the Antwerp Polyglot see Goshen-
Gottstein, '"Third Targum'", pp. 308-12.
26. Cf. his comment by way of explanation of his omission of Ms 229 of the
Jewish Theological Seminary from his edition of the Targum of the Former Prophets:
'Furthermore, the importance of this MS. lies in its vocalization (as far as it can be
read); but the text itself is in no way better than the average' (The Bible in Aramaic,
IVB, p. 31).
27. Cf. Di'ez Macho, JSJ 6 (1975), pp. 222-23; D. Barthe'lemy, Critique
Textuelle de I'Ancien Testament (OBO 50/3; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires,
1992), pp. ccix-ccx.
28. Note especially his comments in The Bible in Aramaic, I (Leiden: Brill,
1959), p. xvi.