3. The Tarr/um on P)-oveibs. — This Targum is not Haggadic, and adheres more closely to the original text. Its remarkable agreement with the Syriac ver- sion has often been noticed — an agreement which
extends even to the choice and position of words, comp. i, 1-6, 8, 10, 12, 13; ii, 9, 10, 13-15; iii, 2-9; iv, 1-3, 26; v, 1, 2, 4, 5; viii, 27; x, 3-5; xxvi, 1; xxvii, 2, 5, 6, 8 ; xxix, 5, 6; xxxi, 31. Dathe, in his JJe Ratione Consensus Versioiiis ChuldaiccB et Syriacce Proverbiorum Solomonis (Lips. 1764), was the first who gave special attention to tiiis fact, and came to the con- clusion that the Chaldee interpreter was dependent on the Syriac. He endeavors to prove his position by many pertinent arguments, such as that the Syriac explains Aramaean departures from the Hebrew most naturally, and that many Syriacisms in words, forms, and orthogra- phy appear in the version which are otherwise unknown to Chaldee, or at least are very rare. Eichhorn and Volck take the same view. Hiivernick denies the use of the one by the other, endeavoring to account for their similarity by the cognate dialects in which both are written, the identity of country in which they had their origin, and their literality. Davidson, in Kitto's Cy- clopcedia, is inclined to believe that, the Targum having been made in Syria, the Syriac as well as the Hebrew was consulted, or rather the Greek through the medium of the Syriac. While the Hebrew was the basis, the Syriac was freeh' used. Different entirely is the opin- ion of Maybaum, who takes the opposite ground to that of Dathe, Eichhorn, and others. He believes that the Syriac interpreter was dependent on the Chaldee. The statements in the art. Syriac Version, its Re- lation TO THE Sei'tuagint AND Chaldee, in this Cyclopcedia, confirm this view. The greatest obstacle in all these disquisitions is the want of a critical text, and INIaybaum, who compared the different read- ings together with an ancient codex preserved at Breslau, has come to the conclusion that Dathe's evi- dence is based upon corrupt readings. As to the orig- inal language of this Targum, Dathe (op. cit. p. 125) expresses it as his opinion that it was originally writ- ten in Syriac, the Chaldaisms which we find at present having been interpolated bj' Jews : " Nempe JmUei utebantur versionibus Syriacis, quas legere atque intel- ligere ob summam utriusque linguse consensionem pa- terant. Sed mutabant eas passim, partim ad suas dia- lecti proprietatem. partim ad lectionem textus Hebr.Tei inter eos receptam." His hypothesis is based upon the fact that the Chaldee in xviii, 22 agrees with the He- brew "2"'^ N:i:2 n\rS XS^, and while the other ver- sions read tin" 13 after l^'wJX, the Chaldee agrees with the Hebrew. But it is evident that because the word is wanting in one IMS., this inference cannot be drawn concerning all others. The fact in the matter is, that only in Walton's edition does the Chaldee agree with the Hebrew text; while others, as Dathe himself admits, have the word n^'U. And, after all, how is it that the Chaldee so often deviates from the Masoretic text? Whence is it that so many Chaldaisms are found even in those codices which, in the passage quoted above, do not agree with the Masoretic text? The answer is that, as the Chaldaisms in our Targum are as original as the Syriacisms, we have here evidently to do with a mixed dialect ; and from the analysis given on the linguistic peculiarities, INIaybaum comes to the conclusion that the language of the Targum on Pioverbs is Syro-Chaldaic, and the original language of the author. The relation of the Chaldee to the Syriac version having already been treated at some length in the art. Syriac Version, its Relation to the Septuagint and Chaldee, we can only refer to it. If the hypothesis of Maybaum, which we have adopted, be true, viz. that the Syriac depended upon the Chaldee, not i-ice versa — for even Davidson admits that " a uniform dependence of the Aramasan upon the Sj'riac cannot be sustained" — the Targum on Proverbs must have existed at a verj' early period ; at any rate, Davidson acknowledges tliat the Targum on Proverbs is older than those on Job and Psalms, in this respect following Zunz. This being so, we do not err in assuming that the Targum on Proverbs
TARGUM
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TARGUM
belongs to the '2d or 3(1 century. It is generally found in tlie Polyglot and Kabhiuioal Bibles. It was trans- lated into Latin by Alphonso de Zamora and John Mercier. See, besides Dathe's treatise, already men- tioned, Maybaura, Utber die Sprache dvs Targtim zu den Spriichen vnd de.isen Verhdl/niss ztini Syrer, in Merx'* Archiv fiir wisseiischd/lliche Forschung des Alten Testa- ments, ii, 6G sq.
4. The Tarcpim on the Five Mef/illoth, i. e. on Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Cantioles, and the Lamentations, is, according to Ziniz, a iNIidrashic paraphrase, exceed- ingly loose and free in character, containing legends, fables, allusions to Jewish history, and many fanciful additions. The whole bears the impress of a date con- siderably posterior to the Talmudic time, and is written in an intermediate dialect between the West Arama!an of Job, Psalms, and Proverbs, and the East Aramaean of the Babylonian Talmud. The least Haggadic is Ruth, the most rhapsodical that of Canticles. Delitzsch {Gesch. d.jihJ. Poesie, p. 135) thinks that " the Targums on the five Megilloth are the most beautiful national works of art, through which there runs the golden thread of Scripture, and which are held together only by the unity of the idea." Whether these Targums are the work of one or different persons cannot be well decided. The former is the opinion of Zunz, Volck, and Deutsch, the latter that of Davidson.