1. Jastrow, Marcus, A Dictionary of the Targumim and the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (New York: Judaica Press, 1996), 1695Google Scholar. Jastrow defines the word targum (תרגום‎) as “interpretation, translation, version, especially Targum, the Chaldaic (Aramaic) versions of the Scriptures.” Sokoloff, Michael, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, 2nd ed. (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002), 590–91Google Scholar; Sokoloff in this dictionary defines the same term as “translation, especially Aramaic Bible translation.” Sokoloff, Michael, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002), 1231Google Scholar; in the Babylonian context, Sokoloff finds תרגום to have a slightly different meaning, insofar as he defines it as “Aramaic version, interpretation,” and later as “the Aramaic portions of the Bible.” Although the term translation is already included in the definition of the term תרגום in each of these cases, the semantics of the term indicate that it can be used to mean something else. This topic, however, is not going to be addressed in the context of this article as the lexicography of תרגום is not completely helpful in defining the targumic genre. The targums themselves never use this term to describe their relationship with the Hebrew Bible. Therefore, our definition of the targumic genre should arise from what can be observed in relation to how targumic literature interacts with the Bible. The question of which general term can best describe these dynamics is precisely the question of this article.

2. Flesher, Paul V. M., “The Targumim in the Context of Rabbinic Literature,” in Introduction to Rabbinic Literature, ed. Neusner, Jacob (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 611–29Google Scholar. In this article, Flesher assumes a meaning of “translation” without explicating the term. For a different approach, see Klein, Michael L., “Associative and Complementary Translation in the Targumim,” Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical, and Geographical Studies 16, Orlinsky Memorial Volume (1982): 134–40Google Scholar; Klein, Michael L., “Converse Translation: A Targumic Technique,” Biblica 57 (1976): 515–37Google Scholar; Smelik, Willem F., “Translation and Commentary in One: The Interplay of Pluses and Substitutions in the Targum of the Prophets,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 29 (1998): 245–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Admittedly the Flesher article is found in an encyclopedia, a context in which the conceptual nuances of targumic literature cannot be explored thoroughly. And although Klein and Smelik's articles allow for a more nuanced approach, they, too, do not define translation or explore the extent to which it can be applied to the targums as a whole.

3. Robinson, Douglas, What Is Translation? Centrifugal Theories, Critical Interventions (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In this volume, Robinson explores the ideas of several influential translation scholars, not so much with the intention of creating a unified theory of translation, but rather to see where they overlap with and differ from one another. This exploration reveals a diversity of views concerning the nature and purpose of translation, both in descriptive and prescriptive terms.

4. Kahle, Paul E., The Cairo Geniza, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959), 206Google Scholar.

5. Vermes, Geza, “Haggadah in the Onkelos Targum,” in Post-Biblical Jewish Studies, ed. Vermes, Geza (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 127–38Google Scholar.

6. Bowker, John, The Targums and Rabbinic Literature: An Introduction to Jewish Interpretations of Scripture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Flesher, “The Targumim,” in Neusner, Introduction to Rabbinic Literature. Flesher is perhaps the most obvious example of a targum scholar making this kind of conceptual move, but Philip Alexander also makes a similar distinction using the term paraphrase instead of interpretation. Cf. Alexander, Philip S., “Jewish Aramaic Translations of Hebrew Scriptures,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Mulder, Martin J. and Sysling, Harry (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 217–53Google Scholar. Making a strong distinction between “translation” and “interpretation” is not without theoretical justification, however, insofar as Umberto Eco has attempted to maintain such a distinction, arguing that these phenomena manifest very different semiotic relationships with their source texts. Eco, Umberto, Experiences in Translation, Toronto Italian Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), 67–130Google Scholar. The irony of Eco's position is that he undermines it himself when he discusses his own experiences as an author whose works have been translated. The result is that “translation” and “interpretation” are shown to have a very complex, interconnected relationship, the contours of which Eco does not sufficiently explore in the theoretical section of his book.

8. Philip S. Alexander, “Jewish Aramaic Translations of Hebrew Scriptures” in Mulder and Sysling, Mikra. Alexander attempts to distinguish between the targumic one-to-one rendering of the Hebrew Bible, on the one hand, and targumic narrative expansions, on the other, in the manner described in n. 7 above. Again there are conceptual problems with this distinction insofar as semantically and practically translation and paraphrase shade into one another in contexts other than the targums. Alexander Samely attempts to overcome this conceptual problem by introducing the terminology of a “close” and “far” relationship between certain portions of the targums and the Hebrew Bible source text. Samely, Alexander, “Writing in an (Almost) Classical Vein: The Art of Targum in an Aramaic Paraphrase of the Amidah,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 75 (1993): 175–264Google Scholar. Again, the result of this kind of distinction is to break the targumic versions down into their constituent parts without discussing how the different relationships with the Hebrew Bible text might be categorized using a single term. Samely continues this trend in a later article in which he discusses different hermeneutic attitudes toward the Hebrew Bible. Samely, Alexander, “Scripture's Segments and Topicality in Rabbinic Discourse and the Pentateuch Targum,” Journal of the Aramaic Bible 1 (1999): 87–123Google Scholar. Among these hermeneutic attitudes, Samely lists “translational rendering,” but again he argues that this is one among several attitudes manifest in targumic literature.

9. Cf. note 7.

10. Genesis 22 has received a great deal of attention among scholars. Cf., e.g., Vermes, Geza, “Redemption and Genesis xxii—the Binding of Isaac and the Sacrifice of Jesus,” in Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies, 2nd ed., ed. Vermes, Geza (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 193–227;Google ScholarDavies, P. R. and Chilton, B. D., “The Aqedah: A Revised Tradition History,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 514–46Google Scholar; Hayward, Robert, “The Present State of Research into the Targumic Account of the Sacrifice of Isaac,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 32, no. 2 (1981): 127–50Google Scholar; Segal, Alan F., “The Sacrifice of Isaac in Early Judaism and Christianity,” in The Other Judaisms of Late Antiquity, ed. Segal, Alan F. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 109–30;Google ScholarHayward, C. T. R., “The Sacrifice of Isaac and Jewish Polemic against Christianity,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52 (1990): 292–306Google Scholar. For a lengthy study dealing with the targumic versions of the ’aqedah, see Déaut, Roger Le, La Nuit Pascale: Essai sur la signification de la Pâque juive à partír du Targum d'Exode XII 42 (Rome: Institute Biblique Pontifical, 1963)Google Scholar.

11. Targum Onqelos (ed. Sperber). Unless otherwise stated, all translations in this article are my own.

12. This translation of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is based upon the Clarke edition.

13. Cf. Bereshit Rabbah, 55.

14. Cf. Samely's notion of different hermeneutic attitudes in Samely, “Scripture's Segments and Topicality.” It is interesting to note that in an earlier article, Samely avoided using the word translation because to him it did not adequately capture the dynamics he sought to describe in Targum. Samely, Alexander, “Is Targumic Aramaic Rabbinic Hebrew? A Reflection on Midrashic and Targumic Rewording of Scripture,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 45 (1994): 92–100Google Scholar.

15. Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method, 2nd ed., trans. Weinsheimer, Joel and Marshall, Donald G. (New York: Continuum, 1989), 384–88, 396Google Scholar.

16. Levinas, Emmanuel, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, trans. Lingis, Alphonso (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 72–73Google Scholar. As mentioned earlier, for Levinas one of the fundamental ways in which humans relate to one another is through discourse. Because there is a gulf of difference separating oneself from the Other, some sort of translation must take place in order for understanding to occur even within the context of a single language. This is especially the case given that Levinas believes that every communicative act involves a revelation of the Other. Levinas writes:

Steiner later remarked of Levinas, “When Levinas writes that “le langage est la dépassement incessant de la Sinngebung par la signification” (significance constantly transcends designation), he comes near to equating all speech-acts with translation in the way indicated at the outset of this study. Phenomenological ontologies look very much like meditations on the “transportability of meanings”; Steiner, George, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), 278Google Scholar. What Steiner is referring to in this quotation is his notion that even within specific languages translation must take place, both because of diachronic differences between the source text and the target speaker, and because of expressions used with local or individual particularity.

17. This is precisely the point argued by Samely in “Scripture's Segments and Topicality.”

18. Cf., e.g., the presuppositions of the following translation studies volumes: Simon, Sherry, Gender in Translation: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission (London: Routledge, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bassnett, Susan and Trivedi, Harish, eds., Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simon, Sherry and St-Pierre, Paul, eds., Changing the Terms: Translating in the Postcolonial Era (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Robinson, What Is Translation?; Baker, Mona, Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (London: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar.

19. The articles by Smelik and Klein cited in n. 2 above go a long way to complicating definitions of translation held by targum scholars. However, to my knowledge there has yet to be an explicit exploration of the term translation in the targum studies literature in the manner I am suggesting here.

20. Cf., e.g., Robinson, What Is Translation?

21. This definition can be found in Tymoczko, Maria, “Post-colonial Writing and Literary Translation,” in Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, ed. Bassnett, Susan and Trivedi, Harish (London: Routledge, 1999), 19–20Google Scholar. Making a comparison between translation and postcolonial writing, Tymoczko writes:

In the case of the targums, one might argue that the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic served to democratize the cult by making it accessible to those who would not otherwise have access to sacred scripture. Cf., e.g., Greenspahn, Frederick E., “Why Jews Translate the Bible,” in Biblical Interpretation in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Kalimi, Isaac and Haas, Peter J. (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 179–95Google Scholar.

22. Cf. the discussion of Jacques Derrida's translated texts below.

23. Cf. Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology, trans. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1974), 27–73Google Scholar. For a good explanation of this critique in easy-to-understand terms, see Bennington, Geoffrey and Derrida, Jacques, Jacques Derrida, trans. Bennington, Geoffrey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 23–42Google Scholar.

24. Seidman, Naomi, Faithful Renderings: Jewish–Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In a discussion concerning the LXX's translation of the Hebrew עלמה in Isaiah 7:14, Seidman neatly summarizes Derrida's position on translation, emphasizing the undecidability that is present between languages, which for her is figured with the image of a pregnant virgin. Seidman writes:

The image of the virgin returns in Derrida's own discussion of translation, quoted in n. 25 below.

25. Derrida, Jacques, Positions, trans. Bass, Alan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 20Google Scholar. Derrida states:

26. Cf. the various models of how to translate Derrida's work in Davis, Kathleen, Deconstruction and Translation: Translation Theories Explained (Manchester, England: St. Jerome, 2001), 8Google Scholar.

27. Robinson, What is Translation?, chaps. 8–11. Robinson's discussion on the tensions between “foreignizing” and domesticating tendencies in “translation” is instructive in this issue. In both cases, translators are attempting to communicate what they understand the meaning of the source text to be, but they have very different ways of going about it. In the former case they will often use terminology from the source language to give the impression of foreignness in the target text. In the latter case they will often use extremely colloquial language from the target culture to convey the impact of the source text in the target language. In both cases, Robinson refuses to suggest which technique is superior to the other, but does discuss how each introduces problems for the task of creating a universally acceptable definition of translation.

28. Sherry Simon, Gender in Translation, 1–38. In this context, Simon outlines a number of feminist translation practices that are explicitly designed to undermine the supposed mastery of the author over the work being translated, a mastery that left undisturbed would be considered a propagation of a masculinist ideology according to some feminist translators. Cf. also Niranjana, Tejaswini, Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar. In this volume, Niranjana outlines a translation theory that she argues will resist the colonizing influence of English translators of Indian poetry. Neither Simon nor Niranjana's position would be possible if translation were controlled exclusively by cultural elites. For Simon and Niranjana, translation must become a decentered practice, taking place on the margins of society and culture, for it is in those locations where some of the most creative cultural innovations take place. See Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 1–27Google Scholar. Cf. also Moore, Stephen D. and Segovia, Fernando F., eds., Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections (London: T & T Clark, 2005)Google Scholar.

29. Wisdom, which is often equated with Torah in postbiblical Jewish literature, is referred to as a tree of life in Proverbs 3:18. Furthermore, Proverbs 11:30 states that the fruit of righteousness is a tree of life. From these biblical references it is not difficult to determine how Targum Neofiti produced its rendering of this passage, as will be discussed below.

30. Targum Neofiti (ed. CAL).

31. McNamara, Martin, Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis, The Aramaic Bible 1A (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 63, n. 28Google Scholar. McNamara writes of the date of two thousand years: “Belief in the pre-existence of Torah, Garden of Eden, Gehenna, etc., was widespread in Jewish tradition but various dates were assigned for their creation. The age of two thousand years before creation assigned to Torah was arrived at by identification of Torah and wisdom; wisdom rejoicing before God daily (lit.: day day = two days) before creation; one day = one thousand years (Psalms 90:40) (a tradition associated with R. Huna, 350 CE, and Resh Lakish, 270 CE).”

32. Targum Neofiti Numbers 12:16 manifests a similar kind of contemporizing move, except in that case the moral lesson is directed to “sages” and “keepers of Torah,” whereas here the intended audience of the moral lesson is more generalized, despite the implied message that all good Jews should obey Torah.

33. I developed this theme in my doctoral dissertation: Simon G. D. A. Lasair, “A Narratological Approach to the Pentateuch Targums” (Doctoral dissertation, University of Manchester, 2008), 117–23.

34. Cf. Robinson, What Is Translation?, chapters 8–11.

35. Baker, Translation and Conflict, 71–73.

36. Ibid., 74.

37. Ibid., 75.

38. Ibid., 122.

39. An example of this problematic status would be the now famous debate between Avigdor Shinan and Robert Hayward concerning the date of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. For articles participating in this debate, see e.g., Shinan, Avigdor, “The “Palestinian” Targums—Repetitions, Internal Unity, Contradictions,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 36 (1985): 72–87Google Scholar; Hayward, Robert, “The Date of Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Some Comments,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 40 (1989): 7–30;Google ScholarShinan, Avigdor, “Dating Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Some More Comments,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 41 (1990): 57–61;Google ScholarHayward, Robert, “Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 42 (1991): 215–46Google Scholar; Hayward, C. T. R., “Inconsistencies and Contradictions in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: The Case of Eliezer and Nimrod,” Journal of Semitic Studies 38 (1992): 31–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40. Smelik, Willem F., “The Rabbinic Reception of Early Bible Translations as Holy Writings and Oral Torah,” Journal of the Aramaic Bible 1 (1999): 249–72Google Scholar; also, Fraade, Steven D., “Rabbinic Views on the Practice of Targum, and Multilingualism in the Jewish Galilee of the Third–Sixth Centuries,” in The Galilee in Late Antiquity, ed. Levine, Lee I. (New York and Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 253–86Google Scholar.

41. Cf. Flesher, Paul V. M., “The Literary Legacy of Priests? The Pentateuchal Targums of Israel in their Social and Linguistic Context,” in The Synagogue from Its Origins until 200 CE: Papers Presented at an International Conference at Lund University October 14–17, 2001, ed. Olsson, Birger and Zetterholm, Magnus (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 2003), 467–508Google Scholar; Mortensen, Beverly P., The Priesthood in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Renewing the Profession (Leiden: Brill, 2006)Google Scholar. Also, Lasair, Simon Adnams, “Review of Beverly P. Mortensen, The Priesthood in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan,” Journal of Semitic Studies 54 (2009): 287–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42. Ginzberg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 3, Bible Times and Characters from the Exodus to the Death of Moses, trans. Radin, Paul (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1947), 345–46Google Scholar. Ginzberg records a similar narrative concerning the death of Og, indicating that this narrative exists in a number of different sources. His narrative reads:

43. This quotation formula appears seven times in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, in Numbers 21:35, Deuteronomy 9:19, Deuteronomy 26:17, Deuteronomy 26:18, Deuteronomy 31:14, Deuteronomy 32:1, and Deuteronomy 32:4. Deuteronomy 9:19 follows the pattern outlined in Numbers 21:35, where there is a long narrative expansion followed by a one-to-one rendering of the Hebrew Bible verse in Aramaic framed as a quotation from scripture. The relationship between the narrative expansion and the quotation from scripture seems to manifest the same complex dynamics as in Numbers 21:35. The same is true of Deuteronomy 32:1 and Deuteronomy 32:4. The other cases listed here quote passages from the Hebrew Bible not found in the immediate co-text, in each case used to substantiate claims of God's uniqueness and Israel's status as God's chosen people.

44. As an example of this phenomenon, see the Targum Neofiti version of Genesis 3:24 above.

45. Baker, Translation and Conflict, 72–73.

46. Ibid., 75, 120–22.

47. Ibid., 120–22.

48. Targum Neofiti does not represent Numbers 21:35 in the same way as Pseudo-Jonathan. As far as I am aware, among the targums this narrative expansion is unique to Pseudo-Jonathan.

49. Flesher, Paul V. M., “Targum as Scripture,” in Targum and Scripture: Studies in Aramaic Translation and Interpretation in Memory of Ernest G. Clarke, ed. Flesher, Paul V. M. (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 61–75Google Scholar.

50. This statement rests on the presupposition that Bible interpretation and discussion of biblical topics was not an exclusive activity of Jewish elites, despite the high social value placed upon such activities.

51. One notable exception to this general statement may be the Fragment Targum.

52. Samely, “Scripture's Segments and Topicality.”

53. Both the similarities and differences between Targums Onqelus, Neofiti, and Pseudo-Jonathan are enough to make this possibility probable, regardless of the different dates usually assigned these targums.

54. Cf. Smelik, Willem F., “The Rabbinic Reception of Early Bible Translations”; also Willem F. Smelik, “Orality, Manuscript Reproduction, and the Targums,” in Paratext and Megatext as Channels of Jewish and Christian Traditions: The Textual Markers of Contextualization, ed. Hollander, A. A. den, Schmid, U. B., and Smelik, W. F. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 49–81Google Scholar.

55. Cf. note 41.