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»commentary«, and »translation«, and later, specifically, »translation into Aramaic.« The term »targum« does not refer to any type of translation, but to translations that involve exegetical elements, and it has been limited to Aramaic translations. These translations facilitated, in different degrees, the introduction of some or many exegetical elements including modernizations. Throughout the centuries, the Aramaic Targumim retained a more special status within the Jewish communities than all other translations because of their close relation to the rabbinic interpretation of Scripture. The medieval commentators often quoted from them, and they were printed in full in the Rabbinic Bibles alongside the Hebrew text. Targumim were made of each of the canonical books of the Bible (excluding Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel), sometimes more than one.

      Some of the Targumim were originally created orally and were committed to writing only at a later stage. From the outset, it seems surprising that Aramaic translations were made at all, since this language is so close to Hebrew. The usual explanation given is that the knowledge of Hebrew began to wane during the Second Temple period, at which point it was replaced by Aramaic, the vernacular language.

      It is not clear when the first Targumim were produced (tradition ascribes the first Targum to Ezra in the fifth century BCE). Manuscript evidence is early, as the Targum fragments found at Qumran are ascribed to the 2^nd–1^st centuries BCE (4QtgLev = 4Q156) and the 1^st century CE (4QtgJob = 4Q157 and 11QtgJob). Some Targumim are free translations, while others are literal, and it is often assumed that the freer Targumim are earlier. At the same time, the literary crystallizations of these Targumim may point in a different direction: The Palestinian Targumim of the Torah are more free than the earlier Targum Onqelos. Some Targumim contain even elements deriving from the European culture of the 10^th century.⁷⁵

      Text-critical value. The analyses of the translation character of all the Targumim focus on exegetical differences between the Targumim and MT, while the number of the variants reconstructed from the Targumim is extremely small and their reconstruction is not stable. For example, the 650 minor differences between MT and Targum Onqelos listed by Sperber⁷⁶ are culled from different manuscripts of that Targum, so that their textual basis is uncertain. Many of them reflect contextual harmonizations and changes. For Targum Jonathan, Sperber provided even fewer examples. All the Targumim thus reflect the medieval form of MT (for 11QtgJob, see below).

      The early Qumran Targum 11QtgJob deviates slightly from all other textual witnesses of the book. Since the Qumran fragments provide the earliest evidence of any Targum, possibly the other Targumim also once deviated more from MT, but were subsequently adapted towards its text. Alternatively, the milieu that created 11QtgJob (not the Qumran community) followed different approaches from those taken in the milieu in which the other Targumim were created.

      4.3.1 Targumim to the Torah

      Targum Onqelos

      Targum Onqelos is the best known of the Targumim and, according to b. Meg 3a, it was made by Onqelos the Proselyte, »under the guidance of R. Eliezer and R. Joshua.« As a rule, Onqelos follows the plain sense of Scripture, but in poetical sections it contains many exegetical elements.

      Scholars are divided in their opinions about the date of the present form and origin (Babylon or Israel) of Targum Onqelos (1^st, 3^rd, or 5^th century CE). Nevertheless, even if its final literary form is relatively late, it was possibly preceded by a written or oral formulation similar to 4QtgLev (4Q156).

      Palestinian Targumim

      1. Jerusalem Targum I = Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. Since the 14^th century, this translation has been incorrectly named Targum Jonathan (probably based on an abbreviation ת"י, wrongly explaining Targum Yerushalmi). This Targum also integrated elements from Targum Onqelos. Several scholars ascribe its final redaction to the 7^th–8^th centuries.

      2. Jerusalem Targum II, III = The »Fragment(ary) Targum(im)«, so named because only fragments of this translation (these translations) have been preserved in manuscripts and printed editions.

      3. Targumim from the Cairo Genizah. MS Vatican Neophyti 1 of the Torah, discovered in 1956 in a manuscript dating from 1504 or slightly later. According to its editor, the Targum contained in this manuscript originated in the 1^st or 2^nd century CE or earlier, while others ascribe the translation to the Talmudic period (4^th or 5^th century CE).

      4.3.2 Targum to the Prophets

      Targum Jonathan to the Prophets. The nature of Targum Jonathan varies from book to book, while it generally resembles Targum Onqelos in style, language, and approach. The Babylonian tradition ascribes it to Jonathan ben Uzziel, a pupil of Hillel the Elder.

      4.3.3 Targumim to the Hagiographa

      According to the story in t. Shab 13.2; b. Shab 115b; y. Shab 16.15c, the Job Targum already existed at the time of Gamaliel the Elder (first half of the 1^st century CE), and an early source of this Targum was indeed found at Qumran (11QtgJob). 11QtgJob contains a literal translation. The printed version of the Job Targum differs from 11QtgJob. For Esther, two different Targumim, Targum rishon, »first Targum,« and Targum sheni, »second Targum,« are known, both of which are paraphrastic and midrashic in nature. Targum-Canticles bears a similar character. Targum-Proverbs is closely related to the Syriac translation of the Peshitta and may have been translated from that text.

      5 Summary

      In sum, this chapter has depicted the complicated history of the biblical text throughout the past 2,300 years. This description would have been much more complex had all the facts been known, but most of the data from antiquity have been lost. The discovery of large treasury troves of biblical manuscripts in the 19^th and 20^th centuries reminds us how little we know about the history of the biblical text. Modesty is in order, but the Dead Sea Scrolls have helped us to understand the condition of the biblical text much better. Until the first century of the Common Era, the Jewish people used a variety of Bible texts, from which the Masoretic Text emerged in the first century CE as the majority text for all of Israel. However, for in-depth Bible study, all textual branches need to be taken into consideration.

      The biblical text has been transmitted in many ancient and medieval sources that are known to us from modern editions in different languages. We possess fragments of leather and papyrus scrolls that are at least two thousand years old in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, as well as manuscripts in Hebrew and other languages from the Middle Ages. All these textual witnesses differ from one another to a greater or lesser extent. The analysis of these textual differences holds a central place within textual criticism.

      It is not only the differences among the various textual witnesses that require involvement in textual criticism. Textual differences of a similar nature are reflected in the various attestations of a single textual tradition of Hebrew–Aramaic Scripture, namely the parallel passages (e.g., Samuel and Kings compared with Chronicles) in the Masoretic Text, often described as the main textual tradition of Scripture. Such internal differences are visible in all attestations of MT, ancient and medieval, and even in its printed editions and modern translations since they are based on different sources.

      Possibly, one would not have expected differences between the printed editions of Hebrew–Aramaic Scripture, for if a fully unified textual tradition had been possible at any one given period, it would certainly seem to have been after the invention of printing. However, such is not the case since all printed editions of Hebrew–Aramaic Scripture, which actually are editions of MT, go back to different medieval manuscripts of that tradition, or combinations thereof, and therefore the editions also necessarily differ from one another.

      The Hebrew Bible is the Bible of the Jewish people, and it also became the holy writ of the Samaritans and Christians in all their denominations; therefore the study of the text of the Bible is not only

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