Biblical Hermeneutics

PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL HERMENETICS ; M. M. NINAN
The Targum Yonathan
Jonathan ben Uzziel was the greatest pupil of Hillel the Elder. Targum Jonathan ben Uzziel
found in the Chumash was not written by Jonathan ben Uzziel according to scholars, who
refer to it instead as Pseudo-Jonathan. He is said to be the authority of the Babylonian
"Megillah", 3a, to have formulated it orally, in accordance with the instructions of Haggai,
Zachariah, and Malachi. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica internal evidence shows that
it was written sometime between the 7th and 14th centuries ce. For example, Ishmael's
wife's name is translated into Aramaic as Fatima (who was Mohammed's daughter) and
therefore Targum Pseudo-Jonathan must have been written after Mohammed's birth. The
classic Hebrew commentators would turn this argument around, and say that Mohammed's
daughter was named after Ismael's wife. Both sides will agree, however that stylistically that
Jonathan's commentary on the Chumash is very different from the commentary on Neviim.
The Targum Jonathan on Neviim is written in a very terse style, similar to Onkelos on
Chumash, but on the average Targum Jonathan on Chumash is almost twice as wordy.
It seems that Targum Jonathan on Isaiah is the product of at least two generations of
meturgeman activity before and after the Bar Kokhba war (132-135 C.E.), though the more
explicitly messianic statements are more likely to have been written before than after the
war.
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