The Aramaic Translations of the Hebrew Bible: The Targumim

The word targum (pl., targumim) refers to the Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, the language that became the lingua franca of Jews in Judaea in the early Second Temple period. At this early stage, translation was oral and simultaneous with the reading of the text in Hebrew. The goal of targum was to enable Jews to study from and worship with the Hebrew Bible in their native tongue. The process of systematically translating the Hebrew scriptures into written Aramaic began in the first century CE, with the exception of the few texts that were originally composed in Aramaic. Some parts of the canon were not translated until the seventh or eighth century CE, by which time Aramaic was no longer the vernacular. Although Aramaic translations called targumim appear at Qumran, they scarcely resemble the more developed late antique genre.

In b. Megillah 3a, the third-century amora Rav interprets the word meforash of Nehemiah 8:8 as referring to the practice of translating the reading of Hebrew scripture into the vernacular Aramaic live, as the Hebrew was read. The Palestinian Talmud also inquires after the origins of the practice of live translation and similarly points to the verse in Nehemiah as the source. The Tosefta attests to a translation of Job in the first century CE, during the life of Gamaliel I “the Elder.”

In a liturgical context, initially the Hebrew text of the Bible would be read alongside its real-time Aramaic translation. (On this practice, see “Translating the Scriptural Reading.”) That is, written texts of targumim were not employed—and were even prohibited—during the liturgical reading of scripture in synagogues. Instead, these written texts were used for instruction in schools and private study. Some of the translations offer a nearly literal translation of the Hebrew text or loosely paraphrase it, but many targumim expand the biblical narrative in ways similar to midrash. As a literary genre, targum renders the Hebrew in ways that illuminate the ideological, legal, historical, interpretive, and theological debates of the times in which they were written.

Targum Onkelos—attributed to a translator named Onkelos—was written in either Judaea or Babylonia, although it is unclear which. It was committed to writing and redacted perhaps as early as the third century CE, although it was initially composed earlier. It eventually became the official standard targum of the Pentateuch in the Babylonian schools (b. Kiddushin 49a) and hews relatively closely to the Hebrew base text. There are also legendary tales about its translator (see “Onkelos”). Targum Neofiti, deriving from Palestine in the third or fourth century CE, was rediscovered in the Vatican library in 1956. It includes considerable interpretation and narrative expansion of the material, a characteristic of the later targumim.