Targum Neofiti 1: An Exegetical Commentary to Genesis, Including Full Rabbinic Parallels.

• Author: Talshir, David
• Position: Reviews of Books

Targum Neofiti 1: An Exegetical Commentary to Genesis, Including Full Rabbinic Parallels. By B. GROSSFELD, edited by L. H. SCHIFFMAN. New York: SEPHER-HERMON PRESS, 2000 Pp. xxxvi + 506. $65.

This book is based on the author's dissertation, "A Commentary on the Text of a New Palestinian Targum on Gen I-XXV" (Boston University, 1968). It begins with an introduction comprising several chapters. The first, "Dating," deals with the date of Targum Neofiti. The author presents several views: A. Diez Macho and M. McNamara believe that it was composed in the first or second century A.D., based on a preChristian textual tradition. M. Kasher attributes the work to the fifth century B.C., while M. Goshen-Gottstein suggests that it is a very late revision of earlier material, from the sixteenth century A.D. Unfortunately, the author is not aware of the convincing series of articles by S. Speier, "The Relationship between the 'Arukh' and Targum Neofiti," Leshonenu 31(1967): 23-32; 189-98; 34 (1970): 172-79 (in Hebrew); A. Tal, "Ms. Neophyti 1: The Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch' Israel Oriental Studies 4(1974): 32-43; "Layers in the Jewish Aramaic of Palestine: The Appended Nun as a Criterion:' Leshonenu 43 (1979): 165-84 (in Hebrew); "Studies in Palestinian Aramaic: The Demonstrative Pronouns;' Leshonenu 44 (1980): 43-65 (in Hebrew); "The Forms of the Infinitive in Jewish Aramaic," in Hebrew Language Studies Presented to Professor Zeev Ben-Hayyim, ed. M. Bar-Asher et al. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983), 201-17 (in Hebrew); "The Aramaic Dialects of Palestine and the 'Yerushalmi' Targum to the Pentateuch," in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), 13-21 (in Hebrew). These articles show on the basis of Neofiti's textual tradition and language that it was composed after the Bar-Kokhva Revolt and before the composition of the Palestinian Talmud, i.e., in the third-fourth centuries A.D. Grossfeld could have found a summary of these articles in P. S. Alexander, "Targumim," in the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

The other chapters in the introduction deal with the relationship between Neofiti and Rabbinic Literature. The author indicates 1,068 rabbinic passages that are alluded to in Neofiti (p. xxvi), while on p. xxxv he speaks of 1,079 parallels and the data on pp. xxv-xxvi rather show 1,058 parallels. About 80% of these parallels are from the ancient Midrashim, up to the...