Aramaic

SBL paper submission deadline extended to March 4

Good news procrastinators! Charlie Haws sent an email announcing that due to a system problem the submission deadline has been extended. Don’t forget Aramaic Studies!

Dear Colleague,

The call for papers deadline for the 2011 SBL Annual Meeting has been extended through Friday, March 4. The proposal system will be unavailable as of midnight Eastern Standard Time on that day. Simply log-in to the SBL website with your Member ID, navigate to the call for papers page, and select the program unit to which you want to propose.

Please remember to read the Requirements to Submit a Paper Proposal. We are looking forward to another exciting meeting and hope that you are involved!

Sincerely,
Charlie

Targum: Preserving “God’s Word”

Aug 11th, 2010

by Christian Brady.

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In the comments on my previous post Joel asked about the origins of the “theologizing” in Targum Ruth. This morning he further commented,

I’m just now getting into 2nd Temple lit, but the Targums fascinate me, especially as a tradition in which a traditional text was developed for a specific purpose and accepted without what we know of today as reactionary calls of ‘changing God’s word.’

Joel brings up some good points about Targum. (A month ago I posted a basic definition of Targum and I refer you to that.) The specific origins and use of the Targumim has generated a fair amount of debate, particularly in scholarship lately. There are three likely contexts in which the Targumim were used: the synagogue, private study, and in the Bet Midrash (school). The origins, however, likely go back to synagogal use. If I may quote myself from the Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible:

The origins of the Targumim can probably be traced back to the liturgical practices in the synagogue. The Mishnah (c. 200 AD) states that the reading of the biblical text in a synagogue was to be accompanied with an appropriate translation so that all might understand the text being read (m Meg. 4.4). Rabbinic texts make it clear that the meturgeman, the one who translated the biblical text into Aramaic during the synagogal service, was not allowed to read from a written text, so that the congregation would not confuse the translation with the actual holy, written word. This leads to the possibility that the physical texts that we study today may not, in fact, represent the actual targum as recited in the synagogue. Nonetheless, the written targumim that we can study share this same respect for the Bible as God’s word and exhibit this in the nature of the genre.

So to Joel’s point, while we may not know if there were “reactionary calls of ‘changing God’s word’” there were clearly barriers and delimiters put in place so that the God’s word would not be change or confused with the Targum. In that sense I think that there were definitely concerns that Scripture remain unchanged. Remember, the whole reason for the Targum was to preserve the reading of Miqra/Scripture in Hebrew long after Hebrew as understood by the congregation hearing the words read aloud. Far from changing Miqra, Targum ensured that it could be crystalized.

Furthermore, Targum was never to exist without the Tanakh (although one can read a Targum and it is fully comprehensible without the source text), in fact, we discussed at IOTS how many and likely most manuscripts have the biblical text right there in the Targumic manuscript, usually alternating verse by verse with the Aramaic, although some are in parallel columns. (See the image below of TgLam 3:18.)

The result is that the community was able to both preserve Scripture without any alterations while providing a comprehensible rendering (in the linqua franca)¹ and commentary. We might compare it with a Christian congregation today where the passage from the Bible is read and then the preacher offers their “rendering” in a more colloquial English followed/interspersed with the sermon. Not a precise analogy, but I think you get the idea. The Bible is still sacrosanct, but the need to translate (even the English translation!) and interpret is recognized.

TgLam 3:18, Solger MS

Although I want to be quick to note that the Targumim continued to be read and studied in communities long after Aramaic ceased to be understood. In that sense, they themselves passed into a kind of sacred status. [↩]

The character of Boaz in TgRuth…so what?

Aug 10th, 2010

by Christian Brady.

4 comments

You know, of course, that last week was the IOTS and I presented a paper on Boaz in Targum Ruth. I was going to post my paper here, but I have changed my mind. (I will post the audio as a podcast later today.) I realized that the paper is so long folks are unlikely to read it all and I will submit the whole thing as an article later this year anyway, so that can wait.

The Chair

On the other hand, I did want to share my basic conclusions as well as my thoughts on why such a study matters. The final few paragraphs of the paper will suffice.

So how has the character of Boaz changed in the Targum? His character in terms of his moral qualities remains positive, but any questions that might have existed, such as those put forward by some modern scholars, are eliminated as his reputation is now beyond reproach. But the character of Boaz within the story, the figure within this moral tale, has changed quite dramatically. He has gone from a relative unknown “prominent rich man” to becoming the epitome of the judge and sage. He is the man that all should seek to emulate.

And that brings us to some final observations. What has been done thus far is quite simple. I have set the texts next to one another and looked for the differences, to see how the Targumist has changed Boaz in his rendering of this text, and offered a simple systematization of those differences and changes. But what of it? Any such survey is mere data collection unless we reflect upon the evidence and draw some conclusions.

The first is that based on content alone we can suggest that TgRuth, if we had any doubts, is in its current form a late text. While one should always be cautious when suggesting primacy of exegetical traditions, we can say with relative certainty that in the case of TgRuth the interpretive traditions found in the Targum are well established in other and likely earlier texts. In fact, many of them such as the reference to Boaz as Ibzan seems to presuppose the audience’s knowledge of the tradition. Certainly the ruling of the sages placed in the mouth of Boaz did not originate in the Targum.

The Targumist was able to choose from a broad preexisting corpus of exegetical material and yet was relatively conservative in what was included. So why did he choose to include the reference to Joseph and Paltiel but exclude the tradition that Boaz dies on the night of his wedding? A complete answer will require a lot more thought on my part and is the primary subject of my book, but a few preliminary comments can be made now.

Whereas the biblical text was, in many ways, seeking to answer the question, how it is that King David came to have a Moabitess as a great grandmother, the Targum has become a rabbinic moral tale. Where the biblical text shows the faithfulness of Ruth to Naomi, the Targum presents her as the prototype of a proselyte. In short, each addition to the biblical text was chosen by the Targumist to exhort his audience, whether it was used for personal study, in the school or synagogue, to strive to follow the example of Boaz to be a righteous man, strong in the Law and faithful to rabbinic precepts.

If you think about it, there are quite a lot of studies out there in our field(s) that do a great job of presenting data, but rarely drawing conclusions. In my specific niche of Targum studies I think that such questions are very important for understanding what is really going on in the Targumim. Of course Ruth and the other Megilloth are small enough that the Targumist would have been able to frame and structure an overarching exegetical agenda throughout the entire work. The Targumim to the Pentateuch, for example, are not likely to have the same traits, at least not over the entire book of Genesis, for example. On the other hand, Avigdor Shinan has shown that we do find such exegetical strategies being played out over a given Parashah.

So what?

Always a good question to ask of ourselves when we get to the end of a paper, book, argument, or sermon. Don’t you agree?

All good things must come to an end

Aug 6th, 2010

by Christian Brady.

4 comments

Willem Smellik, President IOTS

And so the triennial meeting of IOSOT/IOTS/IOQS (and the other associated groups) is coming to an end. As usual I have not been to all the sessions I would have liked or seen all the sights I had hoped to see but at least I have this afternoon to remedy the latter! It was a wonderful conference in a tremendous city. The folks from U of Helsinki did an incredible job organizing this incredibly complex set of meetings and in just over an hour they will announce where it will be in 2013. Stay tuned!

In the meantime for those who are interested I have placed my notes from the papers I did attend on a shared folder in Evernote. I am not sure how long I will leave it available, but in the meantime you can read them here. (I will do a post another time on how valuable the free Evernote is for note taking and research.) And don’t forget, you can see my Helsinki pictures on my flickr account.

A basic definition of “Targum”

Jul 13th, 2010

by Christian Brady.

7 comments

In commenting on another, unrelated post John asked,

Would you please provide a concise definition of “targum.” I am planning to write a paraphrase with brief commentary on the Sermon on the Mount for Sunday’s sermon and make reference to the Targumim to introduce it.

I hope John will chime in with some additional context for how he thinks Targum would fit into his commentary. I often find that Christians are unintentionally appropriating rabbinic methods in an inappropriate manner. I am not suggesting that John is doing that! But I will never forget the preacher who asked me to explain midrash to her since she had recently been doing a lot of reading on the subject and wanted my opinion. When I asked why she said, “Because midrash allows you to make the text say whatever you want!” Not so much. At any rate, it occurs to me that I have not provided any such introduction here.¹

Alex Samely has a nice concise definition: “Targum is an Aramaic narrative paraphrase of the biblical text in exegetical dependence on its wording.”²

In slightly more accessible language, I would say it is a unique kind of translation that often incorporates interpretive material even while presenting a word-for-word representation of the original Hebrew base text.

For example, from Tg Ruth 1:4-5, the biblical text reads (NRSV)

3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years,

The Targum adds explanatory material while still representing equivalents for the Hebrew text, in its appropriate order. (The portions in italics are additions over the MT.) The translation is mine.

3 Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died and she was left a widow and her two sons orphans.
4 They transgressed the decree of the Memra of the Lord and they took for themselves foreign wives from the house of Moab. The name of one was Orpah and the name of the second was Ruth, the daughter of Eglon, the king of Moab. And they dwelt there for a time of about ten years.

I think you can see how the Targumist is answering the “questions” that he felt were presented by the text, or supplying information that was necessary to “flesh out” the narrative. Naomi’s status as a widow is made explicit as too her sons status as “orphans.” (Interesting, of course, since we would say that they were not if mum is still alive, but I will save that for my commentary.)

Sometimes the additions can be far more expansive and aggadic. In a small way we find that in this example with the identification of Ruth as “the daughter of Eglon, the King of Moab.” The first verse of TgRuth, however, contains a massive expansion discussion the various famines that Israel has faced throughout its Heilsgeschichte. You can read far more of that than you probably would like in my article on the “The Use of Eschatological Lists within the Targumim of the Megilloth.”

I hope that is helpful as a quick starter definition. Let me know if you would like any clarification or further examples.

BTW, if you know of anyone who works at The Daily Targum, Rutger’s student paper, who can get me one of their mugs, I would love it!

You can find my brief article on Targum in The Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of Scripture. Eds., Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Craig G. Bartholomew, Daniel J. Treier, and N. T. Wright, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Press, 2005), “Targum,” pp. 780-81. [↩]
A. Samely, The Interpretation of Speech in the Pentateuchal Targums (TSAJ, 27; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992), p. 180. [↩]