Targum Studies, vol. 2: Targum and Peshitta.

• Author: Grossfield, Bernard
• Position: Review

Targum Studies, vol. 2: Targum and Peshitta. Edited by PAUL V M. FLESHER. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism, vol. 165. Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1998. Pp. xx + 252, illustrations. $59.95.

With more volumes of the Peshitta critical edition now being published by the Peshitta Institute at Leiden University, the present collection of ten Targum-Peshitta studies arrives just in time. (Volume 1 appeared in 1992, subtitled Textual and Contextual Studies in the Pentareuchal Targums.) This volume is divided into three parts--a general one, containing two studies; the Pentateuch with three studies; the Prophets, one study; and the Writings, four studies.

The general theme in all the essays here is that there is no sustained evidence of literary dependence between the Peshitta and Targum, except in Proverbs. This subject has been discussed more frequently in recent decades as the critical edition of the Peshitta is nearing completion. Between 1859 and 1970 scholars were almost unanimous in their view that the Peshitta drew upon a Targum or upon a targumic tradition. Before 1970, most scholars thought that the earliest manuscripts of the Peshitta were highly paraphrastic (like the Palestinian Targum, which many thought served as the Peshitta source) and that the later ones were mostly literal, minus the excised paraphrases. As a result of the critical edition, the reverse appears to be true-the earliest manuscripts are actually closer to MT, whereas the later ones contain many more paraphrases, diverging from the literal translation.

In "Targum and Peshitta: Some Basic Questions" (pp. 3-13), P. Dierksen is not convinced that any consultation of the Peshitta of Targum Onkelos took place. He accounts for the agreement between them on the basis of "independent though similar translation needs of the Aramaic idiom." In "The Copernican Revolution in the Study of the Origin of the Peshitta" (pp. 15-54), M. D. Koster finds no support for theories about the targumic origins of the Peshitta, because no evidence exists for the supposed large-scale revision which should have changed an earlier "targumic" translation into a more literal one. Moreover, the evidence from the manuscripts shows a process moving in the other direction. Koster considers the Peshitta in all its essentials a direct translation of the Hebrew text. In "The Relationship Between the Peshitta Pentateuch and the Pentateuchal Targums" (pp. 57-73), Y. Maori analyzes the two major...