THE TARGUMIM AND THEIR VALUE FOR TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

This chapter discusses the Targumim (the plural of Targum) as traditional Jewish translations of the Hebrew Bible that display the distinctive influence of rabbinic Judaism. Targumim were composed from the first part of the first millennium (e.g., Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan) till roughly the first quarter of the second millennium (e.g., Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and Targum Chronicles). The Targumim as a group, but even more so the earlier Targumim, would be expected to be of immense value to students of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, because they reflect a biblical text nearly two thousand years old. When examined, though, one discovers that they are faithful followers of what later came to be canonized as the Masoretic text. As such, their text-critical value is far lower than that of other translations such as the LXX.