The Targums: A Critical Introduction

2. Defining Targum

19 In Hebrew and Aramaic, the word targum appears as a general term meaning “translation,” and may refer to the rendering of any text into any language, although translation into Aramaic is usually the focus. General usage of the term continues today in modern Israeli Hebrew. But when we use the term to designate a group of Aramaic translations of Scripture done in late antiquity, then something much more specific is meant. When we looked at the character of the translations in chapter 1 described as “(1) Aramaic translations of (2) books of the Hebrew Bible (3) done by Jews (4) during the rabbinic period,” we discovered something important. The approach to translation in the Targums is distinctive, differing from other translations, including those produced in the ancient Mediterranean world. The word Targum is not simply a way of designating ancient Jewish Scripture translations. Instead, it identifies a specific approach to rendering a text from one language to another. By identifying and elucidating the distinctive character of these targumic translations, we can fashion a definition that enables us to distinguish translations that are targumic from other sorts of translations. If a new translation was discovered today—whether excavated in an archaeological site or found among the uncatalogued holdings of a manuscript library—the definition could help us determine whether or not it is a Targum. This means that we could identify a Targum on its internal characteristics, not on arbitrary external characteristics; for example, whether it was composed by Jews or Christians, or in the rabbinic period or the Second Temple period. Crafting such a definition is the goal of this chapter. Today, we tend to think of translations in two different ways. On the one hand, translations are literal—sometimes called “word for word.” Modern translators often term this approach, “formally correspondent.” Here, the translator tries to equate the meaning of each word or expression 2 Defining Targum 20 — The Targums: A Critical Introduction of the source text with a word in the language of the translated text, sometimes called the target text. On the other hand, translations may be paraphrastic —which could be called “sense for sense.” Modern translators call this method, “dynamic equivalence.” This approach attempts to render the sense of each phrase or sentence in the source text into a phrase or sentence with the same meaning in the target language. The distinction between the two kinds of translation goes back to the ancient Romans.1 In practice, translations rarely fit completely into one of these classifications. Rather, the classifications represent two ends of a continuum on which most translations may be placed. But having characterized basic approaches to translation, we immediately encounter a paradox. Targums do not fit easily this way of thinking about translation. If literal and paraphrastic comprise two ends of a sliding scale, then Targums actually do not belong on that scale at all. To provide a sense of how Targums translate, let us compare Targum Neofiti’s rendering of Genesis 1:2 with its Hebrew original. We provide the Hebrew and Aramaic texts, and a straight translation of each into English. (The italics in the English translation of the Targum indicates the added material . “HT” refers to the Hebrew text, “TN” refers to Targum Neofiti.) Genesis 1:2 ‫ֹהּו‬‫ב‬ ָ‫ו‬ ‫ֹהּו‬‫ת‬ ‫ה‬ ָ ‫ת‬ְ‫י‬ ָ ‫ה‬ ‫ץ‬ ֶ ‫ר‬ ָ ‫א‬ ָ ‫ה‬ ְ‫ו‬ HT-1 ‫מן‬ ‫וצדי‬ ‫ובהיא‬ ‫תהיא‬ ‫הוות‬ ‫וארעא‬ TN-1 ‫מן‬ ‫וריקנא‬ ‫בעיר‬ ‫ומן‬ ‫נׁש‬ ‫בר־‬ TN-2 ‫ְך‬ ֶ ‫ֹׁש‬‫ח‬ ְ‫ו‬ HT-3 ‫פריס‬ ‫וחׁשוכא‬ ‫אילנין‬ ‫ומן‬ ‫צמחין‬ ‫פלחן‬ ‫כל‬ TN-3 ַ ‫רּוח‬ ְ‫ו‬ ‫הֹום‬ ְ ‫ת‬ ‫י‬ ֵ‫נ‬ ְ ‫ּפ‬ ‫ל־‬ ַ ‫ע‬ HT-4 ‫מן־‬ ‫דרחמין‬ ‫ורוח‬ ‫תהומא‬ ‫אפי‬ ‫על‬ TN-4 ‫ם‬ִ‫י‬ ָ ‫ּמ‬ ַ ‫ה‬ ‫י‬ ֵ‫נ‬ ְ ‫ּפ‬ ‫ל־‬ ַ ‫ע‬ ‫ת‬ ֶ ‫פ‬ ֶ ‫ח‬ ַ ‫ר‬ ְ ‫מ‬ ‫ים‬ ִ ‫ֹלה‬ ֱ ‫א‬ HT-5 ‫מיא‬ ‫אפי‬ ‫על‬ ‫מנׁשבא‬ ‫הוה‬ ‫ייי‬ ‫קדם‬ TN-5 1 See Sebastian Brock’s influential essay “Aspects of Translation Technique in Antiquity.” Defining Targum — 21 HT: And the earth was formless and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered upon the face of the water.2 TN: And the earth was formless and void, and desolate of man and beast and empty from all work of plants and from trees, and darkness spread upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of mercy from before God was blowing upon the face of the water. In the Hebrew/Targum parallel above, all words of the Hebrew text and its Aramaic rendering in Targum Neofiti are shown. The words of the Hebrew text are spaced so as to parallel the longer text of the Targum. In the first three lines of parallel texts, it is plain that the Targum adds words that do not appear in the Hebrew text. These are indicated by the italics in the English translation of Targum Neofiti. There is a...