The Aramaic Targums

In the course of the 5th and 6th centuries bce, Aramaic became the official language of the Persian empire. In the succeeding centuries it was used as the vernacular over a wide area and was increasingly spoken by the post-Exilic Jewish communities of Palestine and elsewhere in the Diaspora. In response to liturgical needs, the institution of a turgeman (or meturgeman, “translator”) arose in the synagogues. These men translated the Torah and prophetic lectionaries into Aramaic. The rendering remained for long solely an oral, impromptu exercise, but gradually, by dint of repetition, certain verbal forms and phrases became fixed and eventually committed to writing.

There are several Targums (translations) of the Pentateuch. The Babylonian Targum is known as “Onkelos,” named after its reputed author. The Targum is Palestinian in origin, but it was early transferred to Babylon, where it was revised and achieved great authority. At a later date, probably not before the 9th century ce, it was re-exported to Palestine, where it displaced other, local Targums. On the whole, Onkelos is quite literal, but it shows a tendency to obscure expressions attributing human form and feelings to God. It also usually faithfully reflects rabbinic exegesis.

The most famous of the Palestinian Targums is that popularly known as “Jonathan,” a name derived from a 14th-century scribal mistake that solved a manuscript abbreviation “TJ” as “Targum Jonathan” instead of “Targum Jerusalem.” In contrast to two other Targums, Jerusalem II and III, which are highly fragmentary, Pseudo-Jonathan (Jerusalem I) is virtually complete. It is a composite of the Old Palestinian Targum and an early version of Onkelos with an admixture of material from diverse periods. It contains much rabbinic material as well as homiletic and didactic amplifications. There is evidence of great antiquity but also much late material, indicating that Pseudo-Jonathan could not have received its present form before the Islamic period.

Another extant Aramaic version is the Targum to the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is less literal than the Jewish Targums, and its text was never officially fixed.

The Targum to the Prophets also originated in Palestine and received its final editing in Babylonia. It is ascribed to Jonathan ben Uzziel, a pupil of Hillel, the famous rabbinic sage of the 1st century bce–1st century ce, though it is in fact a composite work of varying ages. In its present form, it discloses a dependence on Onkelos, though it is less literal.

The Aramaic renderings of the Hagiographa are relatively late productions, none of them antedating the 5th century ce.

The Septuagint (LXX)

The story of the Greek translation of the Pentateuch is told in the Letter of Aristeas, which purports to be a contemporary document written by Aristeas, a Greek official at the Egyptian court of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 bce). It recounts how the law of the Jews was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars sent from Jerusalem at the request of the king.

This narrative, repeated in one form or another by Philo and rabbinic sources, is full of inaccuracies that prove that the author was an Alexandrian Jew writing well after the events he described had taken place. The Septuagint Pentateuch, which is all that is discussed, does, however, constitute an independent corpus within the Greek Bible, and it was probably first translated as a unit by a company of scholars in Alexandria about the middle of the 3rd century bce.

The Septuagint, as the entire Greek Bible came to be called, has a long and complex history and took well over a century to be completed. It is for this reason not a unified or consistent translation. The Septuagint became the instrument whereby the basic teachings of Judaism were mediated to the pagan world, and it became an indispensable factor in the spread of Christianity.

The adoption of the Septuagint as the Bible of the Christians naturally engendered suspicion on the part of Jews. In addition, the emergence of a single authoritative text type after the destruction of the Temple made the great differences between it and the Septuagint increasingly intolerable, and the need was felt for a Greek translation based upon the current Hebrew text in circulation.

The version of Aquila

About 130 ce Aquila, a convert to Judaism from Pontus in Asia Minor, translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek under the supervision of Rabbi Akiba. Executed with slavish literalness, it attempted to reproduce the original to the most minute detail, even to the extent of coining derivations from Greek roots to correspond to Hebrew usage. Little of it has survived except in quotations, fragments of the Hexapla, and palimpsests (parchments erased and used again) from the Cairo Geniza.

The revision of Theodotion

A second revision of the Greek text was made by Theodotion (of unknown origins) late in the 2nd century, though it is not entirely clear whether the Septuagint or some other Greek version underlay his revision. The new rendering was characterized by a tendency toward verbal consistency and much transliteration of Hebrew words.

The translation of Symmachus

Still another Greek translation was made toward the end of the same century by St. Symmachus, an otherwise unknown scholar, who made use of his predecessors. His influence was small despite the superior elegance of his work. Jerome did utilize Symmachus for his Vulgate, but, other than that, his translation is known largely through fragments of the Hexapla.