The title character of the book of Ruth has been viewed historically as everything from the paragon of a proselyte to a marginal figure who is ultimately nothing more than a pawn used by Naomi and, more lasciviously, by Boaz to attain their own ends. The Targum of Ruth works within the limits of its genre, rendering the text into Aramaic while subtly transforming the character of Ruth through the addition of bits of information and dialogue.

This paper will examine how the Targumist  has transformed the character of Ruth, providing her with a lineage of her own, a dramatic confirmation of conversion, and making her a rabbinic exemplar.

 

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get this to you.  I have attached the E-Sword file for you of your Targum.  The file just needs to be copied into the E-sword program folder (c:\program files (x86)\E-Sword in most cases).  When E-sword is started it will be included in the Topic files.  For the Newest version of E-sword it will be in Resource Library.  I would have put it as a Bible, but due to time and the fact that we are only dealing with a single book I thought this format would be easier.  Let me know if you have any questions or if you would like any changes made.

You can find the file via this link (right-click or cntl-click and choose “save as”). For more information on this targum please see the TgLam section of this site.

 

Be sure to pick it up at SBL!

 

Solger MS TgLam 3:25, courtesy Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg

I now have little excuse to travel and see the manuscripts in person. Of course once can still make the argument, especially if one’s area of research is primarily focused on manuscripts themselves it is absolutely necessary. But for those of us who simply need the text to see textual variances and so on, a high quality digital image is often better than looking at the real thing.

Case in point: this gorgeous digital image of TgLam 3:25-26 sent to me from the Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg. The clarity is unbelievable. Plus, it gives me another opportunity to point out the even medieval scribes understood that footnotes are good and end notes are evil. (And note the image in that linked post. That copy of this same passage was scanned from color slides I received a decade ago. The new, direct to digital image is so much better, isn’t it?)

 

needs to know not only Hellenistic Greek, but more than a smattering of Aramaic, Hebrew (including Rabbinic Hebrew), Syriac, Coptic and Latin.

And if you are interested in Hebrew Bible, well let’s just say you better put your linguistic cap on.

A serious student will know Hebrew, Aramaic, Hellenistic Greek, Akkadian including peripheral Akkadian, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Classical Greek. I think they also need know Hittite.

All of this glossolalia got me thinking about the fact that none of the authors of the NT or the HB knew all or likely even more than three of these languages. Most likely only knew a couple, which is still more than most people today, I will grant you that. But does Duane or any of us really think that the author of Ruth, for example, Akkadian or Ugaritic or Phoenician? Do we really think they knew historical grammar and the development of Northwest Semitic languages? Of course not.

I understand that for us as literary scholars, historians, theologians, archaeologists and the like we need to know a far greater breadth and depth than the author’s whose works we study. Often they are influenced in ways they were unaware of and that is often grist for our scholarly mill. Each scholar takes a different tack based upon our interests and training, some linguistic and others theological, and to investigate those niches we need specialized tools.

But it might just be worthwhile sometimes to remember the original context and the limitations and expectations of the author and his/her audience.

 

S21-203 Aramaic Studies 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM 11/21/2011 Room TBD Christian Brady, Pennsylvania State University, Presiding Aaron Koller, Yeshiva University Jewish Aramaic literature of Achaemenid times (20 min) Discussion (10 min) Adam C. McCollum, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library Towards a Typology of Translation Technique from Greek to Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) (20 min) Discussion (10 min) James F. McGrath, Butler University The Satirical Use of Christian Material in the Mandaean Book of John (20 min) Discussion (10 min) Ryan Armstrong, Princeton Theological Seminary The Fountain of Youth or the Lake of Fire? Job 33:25 in 11Q10 and Greek Bible (20 min) Discussion (10 min) David Shepherd, University of Chester Can Anything Targumic Come From Qumran? Revisiting Klaus Beyer’s ‘Targums’ of Tobit and Isaiah (20 min) Discussion (10 min) S21-104a Aramaic Studies 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM 11/21/2011 Room TBD The Elephantine Papyri This section will be invited papers addressing the Elephantine Papyri corpus, perhaps from the perspectives of language, law, and social history. Mark Leuchter, Temple University, Presiding 50 Years of Research by Bezalel Porten Alejandro Botta, Boston University, Panelist (20 min) Andrew Gross, Catholic University of America, Panelist (20 min) Bezalel Porten, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Respondent (20 min) Discussion (45 min)

 

At the IOTS conference where I presented the second paper I was encouraged to simply create one larger article that engaged with the entire topic, beginning with the biblical figure of Boaz and moving into the Targumic interpretation. This weekend we have had a wonderful exchange around the topic of Boaz and men in the book of Ruth. In particular Sue of Suzanne’s Bookshelf has had a number of helpful and provocative critiques of my suggestion. Benj and others have contributed as well.

All of this has me thinking that I cannot really flow the one article easily into the other. Certainly the article on TgRuth will take as its basis and allude to my reading of how the biblical book presents Boaz, but to spend 10+ pages wrestling with the biblical text and modern scholarship on this figure to then move into the Targumic (and, referencing more broadly, rabbinic) interpretation doesn’t seem to me like it would flow well. So I ask you, should I do two articles or would you prefer one?

 

CORRECTION: Sorry. I meant to specify Targum Ketuvim as not working yet. Ed Cook immediately wrote me to say that Targum is working for him. It is true that TgOnk and TgJon are working. PsJon does not appear to be up either…

Steve Caruso of The Aramaic Blog reports that The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon is Up. Except the Targum Ketuvim modules (and others?) are not. That is ok, as CAL points out, this is a labor of love so I am just very grateful that they have gotten so much done already. The story itself is worth posting here also:

A Note to our users: We apologize for the unavailability of our system during the six weeks between early May and mid-June, 2011. The CAL server was struck by a hacker from an ISP in London, UK precisely on the day that Dr. Kaufman left the country, apparently simply because he or she wanted a complete copy of our online version of Sokoloff’s DJPA and wanted to save the $100 for the second edition and received instead an early draft of the first edition, while totally comprimising the system. There is no indication that the identity of any of our users was looked for or their own privacy comprised in any way. The length of the delay is a direct function of the fact that we have failed to have any NEH funding renewed for many years now and the CAL continues on solely as a labor of love without any paid researchers.

This may not be “total” depravity, but it is pretty pathetic. I agree with Steve, when we find out who did this, it may not be pleasant.

 

Two recent articles from well-respected news agencies have included fallacious details about the relationship between Hebrew and Aramaic. The first described the Aramaic dialect spoken in the first century of the Common Era as “a language which developed from the classical Hebrew of the scriptures, a few hundred years earlier,” and the second claimed that Aramaic is “the linguistic root of modern day Hebrew and Arabic.”

So which one is it? Is Aramaic the root of Hebrew or did Aramaic develop from Hebrew? The answer, of course, is neither. Although they may be related by a shared lineage, there is not a direct genetic relationship between the two. That is to say, one did not derive from the other. Pete Bekins irascibly assimilates these two absurd statements with the tongue-in-check proposal that “Classical Hebrew developed into Aramaic which then morphed back into Modern Hebrew and Arabic.

via DailyHebrew.com » The Genetic Relationship of Aramaic & Hebrew.

 

Targum Ruth 2:4, Solger MS

I am very (very) pleased to post my translation of Targum Ruth. It can be found here and the opening comments and first verse are below. This is a first draft and the English needs smoothing, but I thought I would do a bit of “crowd sourcing.” Feel free to read it and comment. Short of access to Beattie’s edition (see below) if you have the Accordance Targum module ¹ then you have the base text or, once it is back online, you may view the Aramaic of TgRuth at CAL.

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This is a translation of Derek Beattie’s critical edition, Targum and Scripture: Studies in Aramaic Translations and Interpretations in Memory of Ernest G. Clarke, SAIS 2, ed. Paul V.M. Flesher (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 231-90. The base text is Sassoon 282 (S), which dates to 1182, the oldest MS available. I am grateful to Dr. Beattie for being will to allow his critical edition to be in my forthcoming book as an appendix.²

This is a first pass and does not contain various notes that will be present in the final version. In most cases where words are found in [] and are not italicized they are missing in the MS but are necessary to represent the Hebrew vorlage (MT). In some cases, particularly in TgRuth 1:1, there are words or phrases which are not in S (and are part of an aggadic expansion) but are necessarily for the expansion to make sense. If you have any corrections or comments (or corrections, remember, this is a first pass) please contact the me at cbrady@psu.edu.

The copyright is held by C. M. M. Brady. No use of this translation may be made without the author’s permission.

Chapter 1

1 When the judges led there was a [severe] famine in the land of Israel. Ten severe famines were decreed from Heaven to be in the world from the day of the creation of the world until the time when the King Messiah shall come, to reprove through them the inhabitants of the world. The first famine was in the days of Adam. The second famine was in the days of Lamech. The third famine was in the days of Abraham. The fourth famine was in the days of Isaac. The fifth famine was in the days of Jacob. The sixth famine was in the days of Boaz, who was called Ibzan (אבצן) the Righteous, who was from Bethlehem. The seventh famine was in the days of David, the King of Israel. The eighth famine was in the days of Elijah the prophet. The [ninth] famine was in the days of Elisha in Samaria. And the tenth famine will be [in the future], not a famine of eating bread nor a drought of drinking water, rather of hearing the word of prophecy from before the Lord. And when that famine was severe in the land of Israel a great man from Bethlehem of Judah went out and went to dwell in the field of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

Read all of Targum Ruth.

 

1. This translation will be in the Accordance translation module in due time.
2. The images of a TgRuth MS on this site are of Codex Solger MS 1-7.2° (Solger) and should not be confused with the base text used in the translation which is Sassoon. The Sassoon MS is in private hands and I have only a photocopy of a facsimile available and do not have permission to post the images.