We might also note that if an addition is based upon a play in Hebrew language rather than Aramaic, it is likely unoriginal to the Targum. This does not necessarily means that it predates the Targum but that is often a reasonable assumption.

Finally, a very imprecise way, but often employed, for determining if an expansion is a later addition to an earlier Targum Urtext is to see if one can easily excerpt the expansion and still have the remaining Targum text make sense.

In the end, the best I think we can hope for are very early aggadic traditions and some sort of terminus ad quem and then use those as our “goal posts.” No date can be set with great certainty, and I have not even touched upon linguistic evidence (mostly because I think it is far too problematic for dating purposes, but these perhaps the simplest and maybe even best methods we can have for providing a “ball park” date of composition.

Finally, there is very little clear evidence within TgLam which might indicate its date of composition. The references in 4.21-2 to Constantinople, Edom, Rome, Italy, Persians, and the “Parkevi” only serve to complicate the matter. The reference to Elijah as High Priest (a title found primarily in TgPsJ, which was redacted no later than the seventh century CE)#818 suggests a date of redaction sometime within the seventh century CE and this is supported by the rabbinic evidence.#819 Although the Talmud does not seem to be aware of any consistent use of a targum to Lamentations during the ninth of Ab service, Soferim 42b
prescribes the reading of the Book of Lamentations and its targum as part of the commemoration of the destruction of the Temple. It is impossible to determine if the version of TgLam which we now possess is the same as that described in Soferim. However, it is clear that the practice of reading the Book of Lamentations and its targum as part of the synagogal worship on the ninth of Ab became institutionalized by the time of the composition of Soferim, roughly the seventh century CE.

#818
See §3.1.1 and §3.4.21.
#819
One must be cautious in employing an “argument from silence,” but it may be significant, and further justification of dating the targum to the first half of the seventh century CE, that there is no reference
to Arabs or Muslims.

My views have not changed since I wrote this. I am, however, becoming more convinced that many of the other targumim to the megillot are also from this general period. There does seem to be some consensus about this, but what all scholars who have addressed this issue seem to agree is that we cannot really make any definitive pronouncement about the date of the final form of these texts.

I should add that it is clear that, as with all targumim, TgLam contains exegetical material that is far older than the final form that we have received. But I am also fairly certain that the “final” (as final as we can determine) redactor had a strong hand in organizing the material so that TgLam (and I believe the other targumim of the megillot) have a fairly consistent and coherent message. So the attempt at dating the final form is, in many ways, a dating of its “composition.”

Many thanks!

isaac