Targumic and Cognate Studies: Essays in Honour of Martin McNamara (JSOT Supplement)

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OFTHE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENTSERIES

230

Editors David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies Executive Editor John Jarick Editorial Board Robert P. Carroll, Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller

Sheffield Academic Press

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Targumic and Cognate Studies Essays in Honour of Martin McNamara

edited by Kevin J. Cathcart

and Michael Maher

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 230

Copyright © 1996 Sheffield Academic Press Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd Mansion House 19 Kingfield Road Sheffield SI 19AS England

Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by Bookcraft Ltd Midsomer Norton, Bath

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 1-85075-632-5

CONTENTS

Preface Abbreviations List of Contributors

7 9 11

Parti TARGUMIC STUDIES

PHILIP S. ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory: Notes on the Development of an Exegetical Tradition

14

LUIS DIEZ MERINO

Onomastica y Toponimia: Targum, Midras y Antiguo Testamento

30

BERNARD GROSSFELD

Tin ]H «^n - 'Finding Favor in Someone's Eyes': The Treatment of this Biblical Hebrew Idiom in the Ancient Aramaic Versions 52

ROBERT HAYWARD Shem, Melchizedek, and Concern with Christianity in the Pentateuchal Targumim

67

MICHAEL MAKER Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of Exodus 2.21

81

CELINE MANGAN The Attitude to Women in the Prologue of Targum Job

100

JOSEP RIBERA

The Image of Israel according to the Targum of Ezekiel

111

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Targumic and Cognate Studies

AVIGDOR SHINAN Post-Pentateuchal Figures in the Pentateuchal Aramaic Targumim

122

Part II ARAMAIC AND SYRIAC STUDIES KEVIN J. CATHCART The Curses in Old Aramaic Inscriptions

140

EDWARD M. COOK Our Translated Tobit

153

ROBERT P. GORDON Translational Features of the Peshitta in 1 Samuel

163

JOHN F. HEALEY 'May He be Remembered for Good': An Aramaic Formula

177

CARMEL MCCARTHY Allusions and Illusions: St Ephrem's Verbal Magic in the Diatessaron Commentary

187

EMILE PUECH La Priere de Nabonide (4Q242)

208

A Bibliography of the Works of Martin McNamara in Targumic and Biblical Studies

229

Index of References Index of Authors

234 247

PREFACE

This collection of essays by a group of international scholars is intended to pay fitting honour to Professor Martin McNamara, who celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday in 1995. Although Martin McNamara has made significant and innovative contributions in the field of Hiberno-Latin studies, especially in research on the Apocrypha and the Psalms in the early Irish Church, the present volume is intended to pay tribute to his remarkable contribution to targumic studies over a period of almost forty years. When Martin McNamara was a student of theology in Rome in the early 1950s, he happened to live in the same religious community as Alejandro Diez Macho. Diez Macho was then making his initial study of MS Neofiti 1, which he had discovered in the Vatican Library in 1949. A few years later, when Fr McNamara was preparing his doctoral thesis, Diez Macho supplied him with photocopies of the MS, and awoke in him an interest in the targums. The friendship between Martin McNamara and Alejandro Diez Macho lasted until the latter's death in 1984, and the two scholars cooperated in several scholarly projects, notably in the editing and translation of MS Neofiti 1. Martin McNamara's doctoral thesis became The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, which was published in 1966. It gave a major boost to targumic studies in the Christian world, and especially in the English-speaking world. As the list of Martin's works which we include in this volume shows, he has continued since then to produce important books and articles dealing with many aspects of targumic and Aramaic studies. Besides his prolific work as a writer, Martin McNamara has contributed in many other ways to the advancement of targumic and biblical scholarship. For a number of years he organized regular seminars on targumic themes under the auspices of the Irish Biblical Association. In 1992 he organized the Targum conference at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, which attracted Targum and Aramaic specialists from many

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centres of scholarship to the Irish capital. As a member of the Royal Irish Academy, he has been the driving force behind the Academy's committee on biblical and Near Eastern studies, and he has helped to organize several international conferences in the Academy on various aspects of biblical studies. Martin McNamara has also been busy as an editor and has participated in the production of several important series: he co-edited with the late Carl Stuhlmueller the twenty-three volumes of the Old Testament Message: A Biblical-Theological Commentary. The series The Aramaic Bible, which is nearing completion, will be familiar to readers of this volume. The editors wish to express their thanks to all the scholars who agreed to contribute to this work. Their readiness to do so was in itself a sign of their esteem for the scholar whom we honour. As we present their work to Fr McNamara, we offer him their congratulations and those of the many other scholars who admire his work, and we wish him many more fruitful years of scholarly involvement in the many areas in which he is interested. We wish to thank Sheffield Academic Press for accepting this volume for publication, and we are indebted to Anne Spillane of the Department of Near Eastern Languages, University College, Dublin, who prepared most of the manuscript. Kevin J. Cathcart Michael Maher

ABBREVIATIONS

AB AnBib ANET ATD BA BASOR BETL BHS Bib BibOr BSOAS CAD CBQ CCSL CIS CSCO EBib EncJud EstBib HTR HUCA ICC IEJ ITQ JANES JBL JBLMS JJS JNES JSS JSSSup JTS KAI NSI

Anchor Bible Analecta biblica J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 3rd edn Das Alte Testament Deutsch Biblical Archaeologist Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia Biblica Biblica et orientalia Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies The Assyrian Dictionary, Chicago Catholic Biblical Quarterly Corpus christianorum: series latina Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium Etudes bibliques Encyclopaedia Judaica Estudios biblicos Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual International Critical Commentary Israel Exploration Journal Irish Theological Quarterly Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Biblical Literature, Monograph Series Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Semitic Studies, Supplements Journal of Theological Studies H. Donner and W. Rollig, Kanaandische und aramdische Inschriften G A. Cooke, A Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions

10 OBO OCP OTL OTS PL RB REJ RHPR RevQ SBLDS SC SNTSMS SPB TDNT VC VT VTSup ZAW

Targumic and Cognate Studies Orbis biblicus et orientalis Orientalia Christiana Periodica Old Testament Library Oudtestamentische Studien J. Migne, Patrologia latina Revue biblique Revue des etudes juives Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses Revue de Qumran Society of Biblical Literature, Dissertation Series Sources chretiennes Society for New Testament Studies, Monograph Series Studia postbiblica G. Kittel and G. Friedrich (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vigiliae christianae Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Philip S. Alexander is Professor of Postbiblical Jewish Literature at the University of Manchester. Kevin J. Cathcart is Professor of Near Eastern Languages at University College, Dublin. Edward M. Cook is Associate Research Scholar on the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnatti, Ohio. Luis Diez Merino is Professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the University of Barcelona. Robert P. Gordon is Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. Bernard Grossfeld is Emeritus Professor of Hebrew Studies at the University of Wisconsin. Robert Hayward is Reader in Theology at the University of Durham. John F. Healey is Reader in Semitic Philology at the University of Manchester. Carmel McCarthy is Lecturer in Hebrew and Syriac at University College, Dublin. Michael Maher is Lecturer in Scripture at the Mater Dei Institute of Education, Dublin. Celine Mangan is Lecturer in Scripture at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin. Emile Puech is Professor at the Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem. Josep Ribera is Professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the University of Barcelona. Avigdor Shinan is Professor in the Department of Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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Parti TARGUMIC STUDIES

THE SONG OF SONGS AS HISTORICAL ALLEGORY: NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXEGETICAL TRADITION*

Philip S. Alexander

Over the centuries the Song of Songs has attracted more comment than almost any other part of the Hebrew Bible. Even a cursory reading of the great surveys of the history of Canticles exegesis by Friedrich Ohly (1958), and, more recently, by Max Engammare (1993) will reveal how extensive the interest has been.1 This interest reflects directly the problematic nature of the book. On the surface it is totally non-religious: it * I have benefited greatly from comments I received on a version of this paper given at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds in July 1995, particularly from Hubert Stadler of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. I intend to return to this subject more fully at a later date, but I hope that the present preliminary observations will be a worthy tribute to a scholar who has done so much for biblical studies in Ireland and world-wide. 1. F. Ohly, Hohelied-Studien: Grundziige einer Geschichte der Hoheliedauslegung des Abenlandes bis zum 1200 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1958); M. Engammare, Le Cantique des Cantiques a la renaissance: etude et bibliographic (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1993). See further, C.D. Ginsburg, The Song of Songs (London: Longman, 1857), pp. 20-102; R.F. Littledale, A Commentary on the Song of Songs from Ancient and Mediaeval Sources (London: Joseph Masters, 1869), pp. xxxii-xl; H. Riedlinger,Die Makellosigkeit der Kirche in den lateinischen Hoheliedkommentaren des Mittelalters (Miinster: Aschendorff, 1958); R. Herde, Das Hohelied in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters bis zum 12. Jahrhundert (Miinchener Beitrage zur Mediavistik und Renaissance-Forschung 3; Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioeva, 1968); M.R. Pope, Song of Songs (AB, 7C; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), pp. 89-229; E.A. Clark, The Uses of the Song of Songs: Origen and the Later Latin Fathers', in Ascetic Piety and Women's Faith: Essays on Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986), pp. 386-427; A.W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990); E.A. Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Mediaeval Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990).

ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory

15

contains not a single mention of the name of God, nor does it refer to any of the great themes of sacred history—the Torah, the covenant, the election of Israel. It is full of erotic, sensual, even carnal images. One recent interpreter has seriously suggested that it could be categorized as 'pornography'. 2 From rabbinic sources it is clear that as late as the second century CE some still had doubts whether or not Canticles was inspired scripture.3 But it did, in the end, find a secure place in the canon of both the Synagogue and the Church, and once there successive generations were faced with the problem of making it an edifying portion of Holy Writ. The form of the book, as well as its content, created problems. Canticles consists totally of short, unrubricated passages of direct speech. There is no narrative framework to tell us who is speaking, who is being addressed, or the context in which the words are uttered. All this has to be deduced from clues embedded within the speech itself. Bible commentators—and indeed literary critics in general—display, on the whole, a prosaic mentality and consequently do not cope well with lyric poetry. They are most comfortable with narratives, and as a result much of the interpretation of the Song of Songs has involved constructing a story into which the discrete poems can be inserted and which gives coherence 2. See D.J.A. Clines's provocative study 'Why is there a Song of Songs and what does it do to you if you read it?', Jian Dao: A Journal of Bible and Theology 1 (1994), pp. 3-27: 'I find myself asking, Is the book [of Canticles] to any degree responsible for the way it has been read? Can a book, indeed, be innocent of its reception? What is it about this book that has allowed and legitimated a reading so against its own grain? I don't rightly know how to answer this question; but I have a suspicion that a work which came into the world as soft pornography proves ultimately to be irredeemable in polite society' (p. 19). 'In the Song, the woman is everywhere constructed as the object of male gaze...To her male spectators, the readers of the poem, of course, she cannot say, "Do not stare at me"; for she is brought into existence precisely to be stared at, and the veil she would willingly cover herself with is disallowed by the poet's gaze. She has been the victim of male violence and anger (1.6), and she bears the marks of it on her face; and now the poet invites his readers to share his sight of the woman's humiliation. It is the very stuf of pornography' (p. 24). 3. M. Yad. 3,5. Fragments of Song of Songs have been discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls (see E. Tov's important discussion of this material in 'Three Manuscripts (Abbreviated Texts?) of Canticles from Qumran Cave 4', JJS 46, [1995], pp. 88-111). This suggests that already by the first century BCE the book wa being read allegorically, since it is hardly conceivable, given the religious outlook of the group behind the Scrolls, that they would have read the text literally.

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to the text from beginning to end.4 The broad thrust of the exegesis of Canticles has been overwhelmingly historicizing. This is true whether the book was read naturalistically as an epithalamium for the nuptials of Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter, or allegorically as an account of the soul's relationship to God and its journey along the via mystica, or as a sort of cryptic biography of the Virgin Mary and her relationship to Christ, an interpretation popular in the twelfth century among Christian exegetes at the height of Marian devotion. The particular interpretation on which I shall focus in the present paper takes this historicizing tendency to an extreme. It treats the Song of Songs as an allegorical history of the relationship between God (= the Bridegroom) on the one hand, and Israel and/or the Church (= the Bride) on the other, and it correlates each individual poem with 'real' historical events. Its distinguishing mark is that it is systematic: the historical correlations are in correct chronological order and cover an extended period of time, in some cases stretching from the creation of the world to the end of history. The heyday of this approach was the seventeenth century, when it enjoyed a particular vogue among Protestant commentators. The key figure appears to have been Thomas Brightman. Brightman argued that the Song is a prophetic history of the Church under both the old and the new dispensations from the time of King David until the Second Coming, and so detailed were the correlations which he made between the text and history that he found allusions in it to events in Geneva in the time of Calvin! He summarizes his reading thus: The authority of this Song is declared in the Inscription. Then he [Solomon] prosecuteth his purpose in verse, which is wholly employed in describing the condition of the Church, as well as it was Legall, from the time of David to the death of Christ, in the 3 first chapters and to the 6. 4. The headings of some of the Psalms provide an early example of an attempt to create a context for unrubricated speech: e.g. Ps. 56: 'A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath' (see further, Pss. 7, 18, 51, 54, 57, 59, 60, 63, 142). Similar attempts can be found in the Diwans of mediaeval Hebrew poets such as Solomon ibn Gabirol. Such headings constitute a sort of primitive commentary and illustrate the difficulties later scholars had in coping with poetry. The creation of a 'co-text' from clues contained within direct speech is found in the targumim of the Pentateuch (A. Samely, The Interpretation of Speech in the Pentateuch Targums [Tubingen: Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1992]), of the Prophets (R.P. Gordon, 'Dialogue and Disputation in the Targum to the Prophets', JSS 39 [1994], pp. 7-17) and of the Writings (notably in Targum Shir ha-Shirim).

ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory

17

verse of the 4. chapter. As also, as it was Evangelicall unto the Second Comming of Christ to the end of the book.

Brightman underscored his view of Canticles as predictive prophecy by suggesting that its implied narrative runs parallel to that of the Revelation of John, a text which, like other Protestant scholars of his day, he read historically, and on which he wrote an influential commentary: This Prophesie following [i.e. Canticles] agreeth well neere in all things with that of Saint lohn in the Revelation. They fore-shew the same events in the like times. And either of them directeth his course to the same marke. They differ so much in beginnings as Salomon exceeded John in age. They also follow somewhat, a divers manner of handling it. John setteth forth the strifes and battels of the Church more at large, and exactly painteth out her enemies with a greater caution or heed taking. But this Propheticall Paranymph (or marriage maker) toucheth these things more sparingly, desirous only to set forth the joyful events of the Church, he scarcely mentioned at all any accidents, whereby this nuptiall song might be disturbed: or at least so seasoning her troubles, that much pleasure may always appear in them.5

Brightman's 'Propheticall Exposition' of Canticles first appeared in English in 1644, although Brightman himself flourished in the Tudor period (he died in 1607), and the Latin version of his commentary was

5. Brightman's Commentary on the Canticles appeared twice in English in 1644, once in Amsterdam as a separate volume, and once in London as part of the volume of his collected works, along with his commentary on the Apocalypse. The historical school dominated Protestant exegesis of Revelation from the Reformation until the early nineteenth century (R.J. Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse [Abingdon: The Sutton Courtenay Press, 1978]). The idea that Canticles is the Old Testament counterpart of the New Testament Apocalypse is found already in patristic and mediaeval commentators; see Ann Matter's observations on this point: 'Besides his virtually complete elaboration of the Song of Songs as an allegory of the immediate tribulations of institutional Christianity, Gregory of Elvira also gives a hint of another development in Latin Song of Songs interpretation: the connnection between the Song of Songs and the Apocalypse as related allegories of the Church.. .The Song of Songs and the Apocalypse were.. .increasingly read together, as two accounts of the same divine plan...an apocalyptic theme in Song of Songs exegesis is well developed by Honorius in the twelfth century' (The Voice of My Beloved, p. 89, and passim). Linking the two texts may have been encouraged by the fact that the one more or less plausible quotation from Canticles in the New Testament is found in Rev. 3.20, 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock'; cf. Cant. 5.2, 'It is the voice of my beloved that knocks'.

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published (posthumously) in Basel in 1614.6 He is the oldest of the group of seventeenth-century scholars who take this historical line, and his work, whether directly or indirectly, probably influenced the others. The group includes the Englishmen John Cotton,7 Nathanael Homes,8 John Davenport and George Wither,9 and the Germans Johannes Cocceius10 and Caspar Heunisch.11 Cocceius and Heunisch are noteworthy for the way in which they develop Brightman's suggestion of a parallelism between Canticles and the Apocalypse by superimposing a detailed apocalyptic historical schema on the Song of Songs. Thus Cocceius divided the Song into seven periods corresponding to the seven seals and seven trumpets of Revelation. And Heunisch discovered in Canticles seven successive ages reflecting the spiritual states of the Seven Churches of Asia in Revelation, the final age (that of Laodicea) beginning in the year 2060! Reading the Song of Songs as allegorical history went out of fashion at the end of the seventeenth century. Heunisch's Apocalyptic Commentary on the Song of Songs (1688) was one of its last exemplars. I can find no significant traces of the practice in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Bossuet's elegant commentary on Canticles, published in 1693,12 inaugurated a more naturalistic approach which was picked 6. Scholia in Canticum Canticorum (Basel, 1614). Brightman's dates are given in the Dictionary of National Biography (II, 1247) as 1562-1607. 7. John Cotton, A Brief Exposition of the whole Book of Canticles (London, 1642). 8. Nathanael Homes, 'Commentary on Canticles', in The Works of Dr Nathanael Homes (London, 1652). 9. I have gleaned the information about Wither and Davenport from Christopher Hill's interesting discussion of seventeenth-century interpretations of the Song of Songs in The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1994), pp. 362-70: 'John Davenport's unpublished sermons on Canticles...apparently shared Brightman's historical interpretation' (p. 367 n. 137; further p. 363). 'George Wither regarded the song as a history of the church, "from Abel to the last judgement", when the "blessed marriage" (of Christ and his church) shall be fully consummated' (pp. 365-66, with a reference to the Song of Songs in Wither's Hymns and Songs of the Church, p. 39). 10. Johannes Cocceius, Cogitationes de Cantico Canticorum (Leiden, 1665). 11. Caspar Heunisch, In Canticum Canticorum commentarius apocalypticus (Leipzig, 1688). The work is rare, but there is a copy in the British Library. See Ginsburg, Song of Songs, pp. 78-79, for a summary (though note that Ginsburg misspells the name as 'Hennischius'). 12. Libri Salomonis, Canticum Canticorum (Paris, 1693). Littledale rightly notes

ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory

19

up by Lowth, Percy and other leading biblical scholars in the following century. Bossuet, developing an earlier, minor strand of tradition, suggested that the Song was nothing more than a celebration of the sevenday nuptials of Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter. Allegory by no means disappeared, but the allegory proposed was no longer a cryptic history of the Church. However, the twentieth century witnessed a curious late revival of historical allegory—and from an unexpected quarter—in the work of the distinguished French Catholic scholars Paul Joiion and Andre Robert.13 But there was an important difference: though Joiion and (especially) Robert detected messianic elements in Canticles, both took the Song essentially as a backward look over the history of Israel from the post-exilic standpoint of the author, rather than as a detailed prophecy of the future. The author of the 'Epistle to the Reader' which prefaces the English edition of Brightman's commentary expresses concern lest Brightman's views may be rejected as too strange and novel: 'I confesse,' he writes, 'he that forsakes the ancient opinions of learned and godly men, and propounds to himself a new way, in which he walketh all alone, may (in good manners) be thought to erre.' In fact Brightman's interpretation was not as innovative as might at first sight be supposed.14 The that Bossuet marks a turning point in the history of Canticles exegesis: 'With this author [Cocceius] closes the period formally embraced in the following commentary, which does not profess to deal with the exegesis of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, properly beginning with Bossuet's commentary in 1690' (Commentary on the Song of Songs, p. xl). 13. P. Joiion,- Le Cantique des Cantiques: commentaire philologique et exegetique (Paris: Beauchesne, 1909); A. Robert, R. Tournay and A. Feuillet, Le Cantique des Cantiques: traduction et commentaire (EBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1963). Tournay and Feuillet were pupils of Robert who adopted their teacher's approach and completed his work. See the discussion by Pope, Song of Songs, pp. 179-83. Unfortunately I have been unable to consult R.T. Loring's dissertation, The Christian Historical Exegesis of the Song of Songs and its Possible Jewish Antecedents' (General Theological Seminary, New York, 1967), mentioned by Pope (p. 182), who says that it examines 'thirty-six Christian works which follow more or less the line of the Targum'. 14. As the author of the Epistle himself realized: 'He [Brightman] is not singular in his manner of interpreting: for amongst the Hebrewes, Aben Ezra conceives the mysterie from Abraham to the Messias, to be here set forth; And some amongst us from the Messias to the Churches freedome under Constantine.' I know of no interpretation which correlates Canticles with the period from the coming of Christ to the time of Constantine. It is possible that 'from the Messias' is a slip for 'from

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excessive detail of his historical allegory may have been new but his general principles and approach had clear antecedents, and a scholar of Brightman's erudition cannot have been wholly ignorant of this fact. Thus the Song is treated as allegorical history in the scholia of Isidoro da Chiari (1542),15 in the first commentary of Sebastian Miinster (1525),16 and in the commentary of Jaime (Jacob) Perez de Valencia (ca. 14081490), first published in I486,17 and reprinted at least fifteen times in the next hundred years.18 More significantly still, Canticles is read as allegorical history by the great Franciscan scholar Nicolas de Lyra (ca. 1270-1349), whose Postilla litteralis, printed alongside the Glossa ordinaria, was the most widely disseminated Bible commentary of the late mediaeval and early modern periods. Lyra's exposition of the Song first appeared in print in 1471 and was reissued some forty times in the following one hundred and twenty years. There were several editions of it within Brightman's lifetime.19 It is reasonable, therefore, to postulate for Lyra a central role in popularizing the exegesis of Canticles as historical allegory among biblical scholars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. True, Lyra is rarely mentioned by name, but this does not imply that he was unknown. Scholars then (as now) did not always acknowledge their debts, and the very ubiquity of Lyra's work may have meant that acquaintance with it was taken for granted. In the introduction to the Postilla to Canticles Lyra notes the existence of three different schools of interpreters of the book. First, there were those who saw it merely as an epithalamium celebrating the marriage of King Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter. This, though he does not say so, was the opinion of Theodore of Mopsuestia. Though Theodore's view of Canticles had been pronounced heretical it is frequently mentioned in the David', induced by the preceding words 'to the Messias'. If this is the case, then the reference would be to Nicolas de Lyra. 15. Isidoro da Chiari, Vulgata aditio Veteris ac Novi Tesiamenti (Venice, 1542). See Engammare, Le Cantiques des Cantiques, pp. 282-92 for discussion of Da Chiari and other historical allegorists of his period. 16. Sebastian Miinster, Canticum Canticorum Salomonis (Basel, 1525). 17. Jaime Perez de Valencia, Expositio in Cantica Canticorum Salomonis (Valencia, 1486). 18. This can be deduced from Engammare's bibliography:, see the Index of authors, p. *164, under Perez de Valencia, Jaime. 19. Nicolas de Lyra, Postilla litteralis et moralis in vetus et novum testamentum (Rome, 1471). For the reprints see Engammare, Le Cantiques des Cantiques, Inde of authors, p. *163, under Nicolas de Lyre. I have used the 1588 Venice edition.

ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory

21

middle ages. It proved a convenient bench-mark for an absolutely literal reading of the Song.20 Secondly, there were the Jewish interpreters who took the Song as a parabolic account of the love of God for Israel. Thirdly, there were the Catholic expositors who treated the Song as an allegory of the union of Christ and the Church, and who sometimes presented this interpretation polemically to stress God's rejection of the Synagogue and of the old Israel. Lyra takes a mediating line. The Song is, indeed, an allegory of the relationship between Christ and the Church, but it embraces that relationship under the dispensations of both the old and the new covenants. Lyra thus asserts the continuity of the Church with Israel.21 He takes the rhythm of communion, estrangement, repentance and reconciliation between the bride and the bridegroom as mirroring the actual historical vicissitudes of the Church's relationship to Christ from the beginning of time. The Church has in fact, he avers, existed since the creation, but because it only became a bride with the giving of the Law at Sinai, whereby God espoused Israel to himself, Solomon's account of God and Israel under the images of bridegroom and bride begins with the exodus from Egypt which led up to the solemnizing of the Sinai covenant. Canticles 1-6 relate to the period of the Old Testament: they cover the exodus, the giving of the Law, the desert wanderings, the entry into the land under Joshua, the establishment of the Davidic kingdom, the exile, the return and post-exilic era down to the time of the Maccabees. Chs. 7-8 allude to the period of the new covenant from the advent of Christ to the triumph of Christianity under Constantine, when the Church was finally freed from all persecution and the pax Christiana established throughout the whole world. 20. The view is apparently expressed as an obiter dictum in one of his letters. No commentary by Theodore is extant, and Johannes Quasten questions whether there ever was one: 'The Acts of the Fifth Council (553) quote a passage from one of Theodore's letters...which indicates that he regards the Canticle of Canticles as Solomon's reply to the opponents of his marriage with the Egyptian princess and refuses to grant it any allegorical significance. However, the inference is not thereby warranted that he composed a commentary to the Canticle. Neither of the catalogues of his titles mention such a book nor are there any fragments extant' (Patrology, III [Utrecht: Spectrum, 1960], p. 406). Theodore's view of Canticles fits in, of course, with his rejection of Alexandrian allegorizing. 21. Nicolas's positive attitude towards Israel and Judaism should not be overestimated. See J. Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982), pp. 170-98.

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A small sample, from Cant. 1.3-4, will suffice to illustrate how painstakingly Lyra works out this schema in detail. The bride is addressing the bridegroom: (v, 3) Your name is as ointment poured forth. By ointment here is to be understood an aromatic fluid flowing from aromatic trees in Arabia and in the Promised Land, which is collected and kept in jars. And when it is poured over someone for cooling or for medication it gives off a pleasing odour, by which is understood in Scripture a good report, in accordance with the words of the Apostle in 2 Cor. 2.15, 'For we are the good odour of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing'. So when it says, Your name is an ointment poured forth, the sense is that through the wonders which God did for the children of Israel in Egypt and at the Red Sea the report of his name and his goodness was spread abroad to the other nations, on account of which many were converted to Judaism. Hence it adds: therefore do the maidens love you, that is to say, all the nations are converted to love of you. For many of the Egyptians in this manner were converted, and departed with the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, as is stated in Exod. 12.38. So too Jethro along with his house, when he heard of the wonders which God had done for Israel (Exod. 18). (v. 4) Draw me after you, by leading me mightily out of Egypt. We will run after the odour of your ointments. However, it should be noted that after the odour of your ointments is not part of the text, because it is not in the Hebrew. Rather it was placed by some scholar as an interlinear gloss, which later was inserted into the text through the ignorance of the copyists. The king has brought me, that is, the heavenly king, into his chambers, revealing to me through Moses his secrets, according as it is said in Exod. 3.2, 'When he [Moses] led his flock to the farthest end of the wilderness, he came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb'. And it goes on: 'And the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush'. We will rejoice and be glad in you, which was fulfilled when, having crossed the Red Sea, they rejoiced, saying, 'Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously exalted' (Exod. 15.1).

What are the sources of Lyra's reading of the Song of Songs? The answer is that he appears to have derived it directly from Jewish tradition. Lyra's knowledge of Hebrew is well documented, as is his use of the commentaries of Rashi—the Rabbi Salomon quoted so frequently by name in the Postilla. Lyra's debt to Rashi specifically in the Song of Songs has been studied by H. Hailperin and others.22 The point, 22. H. Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963), pp. 137-246, esp. 240ff.

ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory

23

however, that has not been brought out with sufficient clarity is that his dependency in the Song of Songs is uniquely deep. It is not simply a matter of discrete citations of Rashi to help elucidate the hebraica veritas, or establish the sensus litteralis. The total hermeneutical schema of Lyra's reading of Canticles is based on Rashi. Rashi is one of the classic Jewish historicizing exegetes of the book, which he takes as recounting the history of God's relationship with Israel from the exodus from Egypt until the coming of the messiah. Needless to say Rashi does not correlate any part of Canticles with the history of the Church in New Testament times, so Lyra's coverage of chs. 7-8 perforce diverges from his (a point which he explicitly acknowledges), but elsewhere he follows Rashi's historical correlations very closely. Rashi's exegesis, though done with characteristic clarity and economy of expression, is in its turn not original. He is almost totally dependent on the eighth-century Aramaic Targum of Song of Songs. This particular targum is unusually paraphrastic, and, as I have argued elsewhere, its author appears to have invented, at least within Jewish tradition, the reading of the Song as historical allegory. There were partial antecedents to the targum. Certain earlier rabbinic commentators had contextualized some parts of Canticles to specific events in the Heilsgeschichte— notably the giving of the Law at Sinai. But the targum is the first text systematically and chronologically to correlate Canticles with a long period of the history of Israel.23 The targum inaugurated the historicizing reading within Jewish biblical scholarship. The idea was taken up by others: it is found in the commentary on Canticles attributed (probably wrongly) to the ninth-century philosopher and Bible exegete Saadya Gaon, 24 and in the commentary of Rashi's younger contemporary Abraham Ibn Ezra, though both Pseudo-Saadya and Ibn Ezra put forward rather different historical schemas. The Targum of Canticles was one of the most popular texts of the Jewish middle ages. Rashi seems to have known it and approved of it. He took over its historical schema so 23. See my essay, 'Tradition and Originality in the Targum of the Song of Songs', in D.R.G. Beattie and M.J. McNamara (eds.), The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context (JSOTSup, 166; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), pp. 31839. 24. For the Judaeo-Arabic text with Hebrew translation, see J. Kafih, Hamesh Megillot (Jerusalem, 1962), pp. 17-129. The portion of Hebrew text given by Ginsburg (Song of Songs, pp. 36-37) from a copy of the original Constantinople edition in the British Museum differs considerably from that in Kafih. Kafih discusses the authorship of the work on pp. 9-11 of his introduction.

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exactly that his commentary can be seen not only as a commentary on the Hebrew text of Canticles itself, but on the Targum of Canticles as well.25 Curiously, Lyra also knew the Targum of Canticles. This is evident from his gloss to Cant. 8.1 where he introduces a quotation from the translatio chaldaica, which we can still easily identify from our extant manuscripts of the targum. Since the targum and Rashi coincide so closely it is strictly speaking impossible, where Lyra himself does not inform us explicitly, to say which he is following. Rashi and the targum's exegesis of the Song of Songs is undeniably allegorical: the bridegroom is not a bridegroom but a figure of God, and the bride is not a bride but a figure of Israel. How, then, can Lyra take over the targum/Rashi reading and claim that it represents the sensus litteralis, especially since, as we have seen, he was aware of Theodore of Mopsuestia's more obviously literal interpretation? Lyra addresses this problem in his introduction. He argues that the Song of Songs was intended by its author from the start to be taken metaphorically and parabolically. He compares the parable of Jotham in Judg. 9.7-20, in which Jotham tells of how the other trees appointed the bramble to be king over them. That this was intended figuratively is clear from the context: the trees are the men of Shechem, the bramble is Abimelech, whom they appointed as their king. In this case the meaning of the words (voces} 'tree' and 'bramble' is not confined to the things (res) which they normally denote, since those things stand symbolically for other entities. The interpretation of 'bramble' as Abimelech is clearly correct: it represents in this case the sensus litteralis, which must be determined by authorial intention. So too, the bride and the bridegroom 25. That Rashi actually knew the targum has always seemed to me indisputable, and I am happy to note that Ivan Marcus agrees: see his article 'The Song of Songs in German Hasidism and the School of Rashi: A Preliminary Comparison', in B. Walfish (ed.), The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume (Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1994), I, pp. 181-89, esp. 182: The Targum is central to Rashi's commentary on the Song of Songs and to that of Rashbam his grandson.. .When Rashi decided to adopt the more univalent and linear Targum, rather than the multivalent midrash, as the structural basis of his commentary on the Song of Songs, he also chose the Targum's two emphases as his own. Like the Targum, Rashi focuses on the Song of Songs as being a chronological collective allegory. Like the Targum, Rashi's commentary on the Song of Songs is at the same time an implicitly anti-Christian, Judeo-centric reading of God's romance with Israel, understood as Jews, not Christians. It is interesting how easily Christian exegetes turned this Judeo-centric reading round and christianized it.'

ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory

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in Song of Songs must not be taken simply in their primary lexical meaning, and in that alone: they are intended as figures for Israel and for God, and so what looks like an allegorical, non-literal reading can be argued to represent the literal sense. Admittedly the parallel with Jotham's parable is not exact: that is explicitly decoded within the biblical text, whereas the decoding of Canticles has to be inferred. But Lyra can claim to have long-standing tradition both Jewish and Christian behind him in identifying the bride as Israel/the Church and the bridegroom as God/Christ, and in the final analysis his claims may be said to stand or fall on the general plausibility of the case which he presents. He certainly does present a cogent, coherent and eminently plausible case. Lyra was not the first to stretch the meaning of the sensus litteralis. In the thirteenth century there was a general redefinition of the sensus litteralis, and a tendency to extend its reference beyond the Ssuperficies litterae, that is to say the simple meaning of the biblical text. Some were prepared to argue that in certain circumstances the metaphoric, parabolic and symbolic meaning could fall within the province of the sensus litteralis.26 The exegesis of Canticles as historical allegory is very rare in Christian circles before the time of Lyra. I can find only three significant examples of it. The first is in the Compendium totius Biblie of Lyra's slightly older contemporary, the Franciscan Petrus Aureoli (c.1280-1322).27 This, astonishingly, gives a totally 'Jewish' reading, without a single mention of Christ or the Church! It correlates Canticles with the history of God's relationship to Israel in the period running from the departure of Abraham from Ur to the establishment of the Temple cult on Mount Zion. In other words, in a curious anticipation of Joiion and Robert, Petrus Aureoli gives a historicizing interpretation which, from the standpoint of the putative author, Solomon, relates totally to the past. There is no evidence that Lyra knew the Compendium. Petrus Aureoli was doubtless inspired by Jewish sources, the same sources that influenced Lyra.

26. G.R. Evans, The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 51-59 and 67-71, provides some useful observations on the subject. 27. The editio princeps appeared at Strasbourg in 1476 under the title, Compendium literalis sensus totius Biblie seu divine Scripture. There were reprints in 1508, 1514 and 1585. See Engammare, Le Cantique des Cantiques, pp. 42-43.

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Somewhat earlier is the Expositio hystorica Cantici Canticorum secundum Salomonem, which survives in the unique Vatican manuscript, Latin 1053. This correlates Canticles with the period from the exodus to the end of Hasmonaean independence and the conquest of Judaea by the Romans, one hundred years before the beginning of Jesus' ministry. As Sarah Kamin and Avrom Saltman have demonstrated, the Expositio hystorica is, in fact, an adaptation and christianization of Rashi's commentary on Canticles.28 Once again the Jewish origin of a Christian historicizing reading of Canticles appears to be beyond reasonable doubt. Again, however, there is no evidence that Lyra knew or used the Expositio hystorica. He consulted Rashi directly. The third example is Apponius's In Canticum Canticorum expositio.29 This states that the Song of Songs speaks of quidquid ab initio mundi usque in finem in mysteriis egit acturusve erit Dei Sermo erga Ecclesiam. This enigmatic commentary, in its full form, is large, and as a result its historical schema does not, perhaps, emerge all that clearly from the mass of detail. But that Apponius offers a historical schema cannot be denied. Thus Cant. 1.1-2.6 covers Israel under the old dispensation; 2.7-15 refers to the incarnation; and 2.16-3.11 to the crucifixion, the resurrection, the conversion of the Church of Jerusalem and the bringing in of the Gentiles by Paul. Chs. 4-6 rather lose the chronological thread but they do speak of a time of persecution and martyrdom, and of a fall into heresy by the Church. The thread is picked up again strongly in 7.1-9, which is seen as referring to the conversion of Rome to Christianity. 7.10-8.4 deals with the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire which are looked upon in a rather positive light, since they allowed the barbarians to be converted to Christ. This leaves only the conversion of the Jews outstanding, and Apponius anticipates this event in the exposition of Cant. 8.5-14. Apponius is a very shadowy figure. De Vregille and Neyrand are inclined to accept Johannes Witte's view that he wrote his commentary on Canticles (his sole known work) in Rome between 405 and 415 CE.30 28. S. Kamin and A. Saltman, Secundum Salomonem: A Thirteenth Century Latin Commentary on the Song of Solomon (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1989). 29. B. de Vregille and L. Neyrand (eds.), Apponii in Canticum Canticorum expositionem (CCSL, 19; Turnhout: Brepols, 1986). 30. See De Vregille and Neyrand, Apponii in Canticum Canticorum expositionem, p. cvii. J. Witte, 'Der Kommentar des Aponius zum Hohenliede' (Erlangen,

ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory

27

They are less certain that he was a converted Jew, and with good reason: there is little in his commentary to suggest a Jewish origin. His occasional sympathetic references to the Jews and his interest in Israel's place in the divine scheme of things prove little. The persistent suggestions that he drew on Jewish Bible exegesis and perhaps even directly on the Targum of Canticles are unsubstantiated.31 Anne Matter notes that 'his commentary on the Song of Songs seems to show knowledge of Jewish biblical interpretation', though she cautiously adds that 'this may be secondary, as he is heavily dependent on Jerome'. She suggests that like Jerome, Apponius may be most accurately described as a Christian who lived and studied in Italy and/or Palestine, and perhaps had some connection with an intellectual centre such as Caesarea, where many worlds—East and West, Christian and Jewish, Semitic, Greek and Latin—came together.32

All this is highly speculative. One thing can, however, be stated with considerable confidence: Apponius and Targum Canticles are totally unrelated. If Apponius's dates are correct, then he flourished around three hundred years before the targum was composed. There is not a shred of evidence that the targum's historical reading, or, for that matter, any other systematic historical allegorizing of Canticles was current in Jewish circles as early as the time of Apponius. Conversely it is highly unlikely that Apponius could have influenced the targum. In fact the detailed historical schemas of Apponius and the targum do not inaugural dissertation, 1903), remains the most important discussion of Apponius. 31. So convinced was Ginsburg of the dependence of Apponius on the targum that he dated him to the seventh century (he dated the targum c. 550): 'The influence of the Chaldee mode of interpretation seems now to become more apparent in the Christian Church. Apponius, who is quoted by the venerable Bede, and must therefore have lived in the seventh century... takes the book as a historico-prophetical description of the dealings of God with his people, only that the Chaldee takes the Jews as the object of the description, but Aponius substitutes the Gentile Church' (Song of Songs, p. 67). See also Littledale, Commentary on the Song of Songs, p. xxxiv (cf. his remarks on p. xxxii on the targum as first in order, though perhaps not in actual date of present condition). The alternative would be to hold on to Witte's early fifth-century date for Apponius and argue that, despite appearances, some form of the targum, or of the exegesis therein, must have been current in Jewish circles then. But the detailed convergence of the targum and Apponius would have to be a lot stronger to make that suggestion plausible. 32. Matter, The Voice of My Beloved, pp. 89-90. See pp. 90-91 for a summary of the evidence that Apponius used Jewish/rabbinic tradition.

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coincide at any point. The conclusion seems unavoidable: both Apponius and the targumist of Canticles hit quite independently on the device of reading the Song of Songs as an allegorical history. The influence of Apponius within Christian exegesis seems to have been limited. His Expositio was better known in an abbreviated version, called from its incipit the Veri amoris, which was arranged in twelve homilies and attributed to Jerome. The Veri amoris is extant in a number of manuscripts dating between the eighth and early sixteenth centuries and originating in monasteries in northern France, the Rhineland and the Low Countries. Apponius's impact, such as it was, appears to have been felt most strongly in northern Europe. Bede quotes him by name in his In Cantica Canticorum, as does Angelomus of Luxeuil in his Enarrationes in Cantica Canticorum (Angelomus had access to the first six books of Apponius in their original, full version). There is abundant evidence that he was known in Ireland. Indeed, Martin McNamara states categorically that 'the early Irish sources available to us know of only one commentary on the Canticle of Canticles—that of Apponius'.33 The first printed edition (containing only the first six books) was issued by Joannes Faber Emmeus at Freiburg im Breisgau in 1538. The Faber text was reprinted in Paris in 1589 in the second edition of Margarin de la Bigne's Sacra bibliotheca sanctorum patrum (vol. I, cols. 763-840), and again in the third edition (Paris 1609, vol. I, cols. 631-716) and the fourth (Paris 1624, vol. I, cols. 263-348). The Faber text was also the basis for the Apponius in the Magna bibliotheca sanctorum patrum (Cologne 1618, vol. IX, pp. 25-64), in the Magna bibliotheca veterum patrum (Paris 1644, vol. I, cols. 263-348) and in the Maxima bibliotheca sanctorum patrum (Lyons 1677, vol. XIV, pp. 98-139). Unquestionably Apponius was available to the Christian historical allegorists of the late middle ages and early modern times, and he could, in principle, have inspired their interpretations of Canticles. However, it seems that he did not. In every case the evidence suggests that the Christian historical 33. M. McNamara, 'Early Irish Exegesis. Some Facts and Tendencies', Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 8 (1984), pp. 57-96; his discussion of Apponius is on pp. 71-73. See further De Vregille and Neyrand, Apponii in Canticum Canticorum expositionem,pp. xxxiv-xxxvi, and xxxviii-xl, who claim that Gregory of Elvira's commentary on Canticles may also have been known in Ireland (p. xxxv). They note: 'La presence de ce dernier [Gregory of Elvira], auteur du IVe siecle dont Yin Cantica semble par ailleurs inconnu hors d'Espagne, est tres notable.'

ALEXANDER The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory

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allegorists drew, directly or indirectly, on Jewish sources, particularly Rashi. Apponius appears to have been cherished more for his theological ideas than for his historical schema, which, as I have already remarked, does not stand out all that clearly from the mass of his detailed exegetical observations. So, then, we can trace with some confidence the trajectory of the reading of Canticles as historical allegory and place all of our texts but one on it. The exception is Apponius. Though he was the first to think of this approach his invention seems to have had no direct influence on later exegetes. It was effectively buried in the intricacies of his theological observations. The trajectory proper begins in the eighth century with the Aramaic targum. This established for the first time in Jewish tradition the historical-allegorical interpretation. This approach was followed by a number of later Jewish commentators, notably PseudoSaadya (?10th century), Rashi (llth century) and Abraham Ibn Ezra (12th century). Rashi was particularly important on two counts. First, he took over intact the targum's schema; and secondly, he influenced Christian exegesis. The targum/Rashi reading was probably known to Petrus Aureoli, and certainly to the author of the Expositio hystorica, to Nicolas de Lyra, to Jaime Perez de Valencia and to Sebastian Miinster. Lyra's adoption of it was decisive for Christian exegesis and paved the way for the extreme historical allegorists of the seventeenth century. These were to a man Protestant scholars: it served well their polemical, anti-Roman purposes and fitted in with their views of the book of Revelation. Significantly it was the appearance of the more naturalistic reading of the great French Catholic scholar Bossuet (who may have been reacting to Protestant polemical use of the Canticles) which marked the fall from favour of this interpretation, but in a splendid irony two French Catholic scholars, Joiion and Robert, both learned Hebraists well acquainted with the targum, reintroduced historical allegory in the twentieth century, albeit in modified form. Marvin Pope closes his discussion of their work with the remark: 'It seems unlikely that this line will be followed further'. I am not so sure. A tradition which has proved so vital and seductive for over a thousand years may yet be revived. If it is, I would predict that the eighth-century Aramaic targum, whether directly or indirectly, will play a part in this revival.

ONOMASTICA Y TOPONIMIA: TARGUM, MIDRAS Y ANTIGUO TESTAMENTO

Luis Diez Merino

Introduction La toponimia y la onomastica son parcelas del lenguaje que revisten caracteristicas especiales: si por una parte son las mas usadas en el lenguaje coloquial, son tambien las mas elementales y primitivas, a la vez que las mas conservadoras y mas antiguas. Como estan continuamente en boca popular uno se pudiera imaginar que son las mas sujetas a cambios, sin embargo suelen ser modelos de persistencia tenaz de la memoria de los pueblos. Existen casos en que van evolucionando a medida que nuevas lenguas se van sucediendo en un mismo marco topografico, y en este caso se suelen dar los equivalentes a las nuevas oleadas lingiiisticas, pero aun en esos casos suelen gozar de sus caracteristicas de pervivencia e identidad. La Biblia es un testigo de casi dos milenios de literatura topografica y onomastica, por eso es un documento de excepcion para valorar la smtesis historica de un pueblo que conserva en su memoria no solamente los propios hechos, sino leyendas y narraciones de otros pueblos que le precedieron en el mismo espacio geografico: monies, rios, ciudades, accidentes orograficos, etc., testimonian el paso de pueblos, cultures y lenguas. A veces esta sucesion aparece en los documentos literarios: lugares designados por los cultos que alii se realizaron como 3El fOlam, 3El l<Elyon, >El Sadday, >El Berit, >El Roi, Bet-El, etc., son denominaciones que los hebreos recibieron, adoptaron y transmitieron como patrimonio propio, si bien tuvieron origen en el pueblo cananeo que les precedio en el mismo entorno geografico. Las ciudades a veces seran nominadas con nuevos apellidos, pero se hara constar su anterior denominacion: Salem-Jerusalen, Qiryat >ArbacHebron, Betel-Luz, etc.

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La historia no se detiene: los documentos literarios posteriores heredan tales tradiciones, las comentan, las explican, buscan nuevas etiologias para las que carecian de ellas, nuevas circunstancias, victorias o reveses politicos, influyen para que en ese acervo cultural se enriquezcan los antiguos datos. La filologfa popular es creativa, y busca siempre nuevas explicaciones, nuevos motives, que se anaden a las tradiciones ancestrales de todos conocidas, repetidas, pero de nuevo enriquecidas. Los libros biblicos que abarcan mayor espectro temporal son el primero: el Genesis nos transmite los origenes del mundo y de la humanidad hasta una epoca relativamente cercana, la epoca patriarcal, y el ultimo: el Apocalipsis une la aparicion primera de Jesus, a comienzos de nuestra era, con la segunda aparicion de Jesus, a finales de nuestra era; en ambos se encuentran gran cantidad de toponimia y onomastica que nos revelan la riqueza de tradiciones inherentes a esas dos parcelas del saber humano. Para nuestro estudio hemos restringido el campo de investigation a los primeros veinte capitulos del libro del Genesis. En cada dato de toponimia u onomastica hemos seleccionado tres parcelas de la literatura hebraica: el dato del Texto Hebreo, lo que aporta el Targum, y lo que amplia el Midras. Hemos tornado como base los datos del Genesis en el TH, de manera que si en el Tg. o en el Midras hay nuevos nombres o nuevos toponimos, o se identifican lugares que no se hizo en el TH los hemos dejado, puesto que solamente el Tg., o solamente el Midras, ofrecerian materiales mas que suficientes para otros tantos articulos; hemos seleccionado aquellos lugares del TH que ya son puestos de relieve en el actual TM, y dejamos para otras ocasiones las identificaciones o explicaciones propias del Tg. o del Midras, pero que no tienen contrapartida en el TH.1

1. Las abreviaturas mas habituales son: TH (Texto Hebreo), Tg. (Targum), TO (Targum Onqelos), TN (Targum Neofiti 1), TJI (Targum Pseudojonatan), TP (Targum Palestine), TOB (Traduction Oecumenique de la Bible), CEI (Traduzione de la Bibbia Conferenza Episcopate Italiana). Traduccion castellana de la Biblia, texto de Bover Cantera (BAG), Traduccion del Neofiti (A. Diez Macho), Traduccion del Pseudojonatan (T. de J. Martinez Saiz).

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Genesis 1.2: TH: tohu-tehom: vacio-oceano: 'Ahora bien, la tierra era nada y vacio, y las tinieblas cubrian la superficie del oceano'. Antes de que Dios iniciase la obra creadora habia ausencia de vida (tohu, bohu, cf. Jer. 4.23; Is. 34.11), y habia tinieblas y abismo (tehom, termino cercano a Tiamaf), e.d. la masa caotica de las aguas primordiales (Gen. 7.11; 8.2; Sal. 107.26). Tg: 'La tierra estaba desierta y caotica, privada de hombres y bestias (TJI: de todo animal), vacia de todo cultivo de plantas y arboles. La obscuridad se extendia sobre la faz del abismo' (TN). El Tg intenta aclarar el binomio tohu-bohu y f horn recurriendo a la definition interna de ambos terminos. Midras: R. Juda ben R. Simon interpretaba el vacio refiriendolo a las generaciones. Pero que la tierra estuviese informe se puede referir a Adan, el cual fue reducido a la nada completa por su pecado; y que estuviese vacia se puede referir a Cain, quien deseaba volver a la nada.2 Que la tierra estuviese tohu se refiere tambien a la devastation del Templo (Jer. 4.23), y cuando dijo Dios que hubiese luz se referia a la era mesianica (Is. 60.1).3 1.2: TH: ruah. espiritu-aliento: 'Mientras el espiritu de Dios se cernia sobre la haz de las aguas'. Unos autores traducen ruah por 'espiritu' (TOB) y otros por aliento (CEI). El 'aliento' (o atmosfera) de Dios era lo que permitia la vida del hombre (Gen. 6.3) y de todos los otros seres (Sal. 104.30). Algunos ban comparado el 'soplo de Dios' como 'viento violento' o como 'Espiritu de Dios'. Tg: 'Y un espiritu de amor de delante de Yahweh (TJI: de delante de Elohim) soplaba sobre la faz de las aguas' (TN). Espiritu de amor o de misericordia tambien se usa en el Tg. Gen. 8.1 (TN-TJI). Midras; Que la creation del mundo hay a sido hecha por amor se encuentra en el Midras a Sal. 71.1.4 Segun la tradition rabinica el atributo de la misericordia se aplica a Yahweh, en cambio el de la justicia a Elohim;5 aqui TJI aplica a Elohim el espiritu de amor. El espiritu 2. Gen. R. 2.3. 3. Gen. R. 2.5. 4. W.G. Braude, The Midrash on Psalms (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), I, p. 559. 5. E.E. Urbach, The Sages. Their Concepts and Beliefs (Jerusalem Magnes, 1975), p. 451.

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(ruah) que cubria la faz de las aguas corresponde a: 'Y Dios mando un viento (ruah) que paso sobre la tierra' (Gen. 8.1).6 2.2-3: TH: Sabbat: Sabado-descanso: 'En ese dia septimo descanso (wayyiSbot) de toda labor realizada, y bendijo Dios el dia septimo y declarolo santo, por haber reposado (Mbat)en el de toda la obra que Dios, al operar, habia creado'. Entre los semitas era un dia en el cual el trabajo resultaba nefasto, y por lo mismo prohibido. En la Biblia se da un significado teologico: a) Ex. 23.12 y Dt. 5.12-15 garantizan al hombre el reposo semanal; b) Ex. 20.8-11 el septimo dia es sabado (etimologicamente 'cesacion de trabajo') recuerda la creacion completada por Dios; c) Ex. 31.12-17 es el signo de la alianza entre Dios y su pueblo, d) Heb. 4.1-11 se refiere a la participacion del hombre en el descanso de Dios, una vez que concluyo la creacion. Tg: 'Y el Verbo de Yahweh (TJI: Elohim, Paris 110: el Verbo de Yahweh deseo) complete, el dia septimo, la obra que el habia creado, y hubo, el dia septimo, sabado (Sbh) y reposo en su presencia de toda la obra que el habia creado' (TN). 'Y termino Dios el dia septimo la obra que habia hecho y las diez cosas que creo al crepusculo. Y descanso en el dia septimo de toda la obra que habia hecho. Y bendijo Dios el dia septimo mas que todos los dias de la semana y lo santifico, porque en el descanso de toda la obra que Dios habia creado y que habia de hacer' (TJ). El Tg. mantiene y amplia el ambito de la derivacion popular del sabado, aunque la raiz homofona solamente aparece en TN. 2.7: TH: 'ddam-^damd-*adorn: hombre-tierra-rojo. 'Entonces formo Yahweh Dios al hombre ('addm) del polvo de la tierra (>addmdh), e insuflando en sus narices aliento vital, quedo constituido el hombre como ser vivo'. El hombre (>dddm con articulo, este se pone en hebreo delante de los nombres comunes) fue extraido de la tierra (3addmdh) de la cual depende su vida (cf. Jer. 18.11). Tg: 'Entonces Yahweh Elohim creo a Adam (3dm) (o: al hombre) del polvo de la tierra (cpr mn >dmf}\ soplo en sus narices un aliento de vida y Adam (3dm) (o: el hombre) se convirti6 en ser viviente dotado de palabra' (TN). 'Y creo Yahweh Dios a Adan (>dm) con dos inclinaciones. Tomo polvo del lugar del templo y de los cuatro vientos del mundo y una mezcla de todas las aguas del mundo, y lo creo rojo, negro y bianco. Y soplo en sus narices el aliento de vida, y el aliento se convirtio en el cuerpo de Adan (3dm) en espiritu capaz de hablar, para iluminar los ojos 6.

Gen. R. 2.3.

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y hacer oir a los oidos' (TJI). Las dos inclinaciones provienen de las dos yod que se encuentran en el verbo wayyiserj las dos inclinaciones ya eran conocidas por el autor del Eclesiastico.8 El polvo de la tierra se toma expresamente del lugar del santuario en Jerusalen (TJI). Midras: El verbo wayyiser en el midras se interpreta de muchos modos; dos formaciones: una de Adan y otra de Eva. Dos nacimientos: uno a los nueve meses y otro a los siete. Dos formaciones: la de los seres celestiales, y la de las creaturas terrenales. Dos formaciones: la del bien y la del mal. Dos formaciones: una en este mundo y otra en el mundo futuro.9 La tierra de que fue formado era el lugar de la expiacion, e.d. del lugar del Templo, segiin R. Berekiah y R. Helbo a nombre de Samuel el Viejo.10 El aliento (niSmai) de vida tiene cinco nombres: nepeS, ne$ama, hayyd, ruah, yehidd.n 2.8: TH: 'eden: Eden-gozo: 'Luego Yahweh planto un vergel en Eden'. Eden es la estepa, pero evoca otro termino hebreo que significa 'gozo'. Tg: 'Y Yahweh (NM: el Verbo de Yahweh) Elohim habia plantado el jardin en Eden, desde el comienzo, y alii coloco al primer hombre que el habia creado' (TN). 'Un jardfn habia sido plantado en Eden para los justos por el Verbo de Yahweh Elohim antes de la creacion del mundo y alii hizo habitar a Adan cuando el le creo' (TJI). Midras: 'La escuela de Yannai dijo: ^por que se dice el nombre divino completo en conexion con esta plantacion? Porque desde el comienzo de su creacion se requeria una cuidadosa seleccion: antes que un arbol se desarrolle de su simiente se debe determinar su extension.'12 2.23: TH: 3i$-3i$$d: varon-varona: 'jEsta vez (si que es) esta hueso de mis huesos y carne de mi carne! A esta se la llamara varona (3i$$d) porque de varon (3i$) ha sido tomada.' Este sistema de acercamiento semantico (W-^iMd) ) se encuentra tambien en otras lenguas y en otros pueblos, p.e. entre los egipcios.

7. J. Bowker, The Targums and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 116; Urbach, The Sages, p. 472. 8. J. Hadot, Penchant mauvais et volonte libre dans la Sagesse de Ben Sira (Bruselas: Universite de Bruxelles, 1970). 9. Gen. R. 14. 2, 3, 4, 5. 10. Gen. R. 14.8. 11. Gen. R. 14.9; Deut. R. 2.37. 12. Gen. R. 15.1.

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Tg: 'Adan dijo entonces: Esta vez—y ya nunca mas—la mujer ha sido creada del hijo del hombre, como ella ha sido creada de mi, hueso de mis huesos y carne de mi carne. A ella le conviene ser llamada mujer porque del hombre ella ha sido creada' (TN). 'Adam dijo entonces: Esta vez—y nunca mas la mujer no sera creada del hombre, como ella ha sido creada de mi—(ella es) hueso de mis huesos y carne de mi carne: Ella—el dijo—es hueso de mis huesos y carne de mi carne. A ella—el dijo—es oportuno llamarla mujer, porque es del hombre del que ella ha sido tomada' (TJI). En este caso el juego de nombres hombre-mujer del TH desaparece en el Tg., que prefiere filosofar sobre el origen de la primera pareja humana, pero a la vez reconoce que el modo de creacion de la primera pareja humana no se volvera a repetir: los primeros fueron creados, los restantes se reproduciran segun el precepto divino: 'Creced y multiplicaos y llenad la tierra' (TH 1.28). Midras: Aprovecha para indicar que del juego de palabras 3iSSd-3iS se colige que la Torah fue dada en la lengua santa, e.d. en hebreo: 'R. Pinhas y R. Helkiah en nombre de R. Simon dijeron: Asi como fue dada en la lengua santa, asi el mundo fue creado en la lengua santa: ^has oido alguna vez decir gini, ginia; fitha, cittha; antropi, antropia; gabra, gabrethal Pero si se usa ^iS-^iSM. ^Por que? Porque una forma corresponde a la otra.'13 Es decir, que ni en griego, ni en arameo, sino solamente en hebreo se corresponden la forma masculina con la femenina, por lo cual esa es la forma empleada por Dios. 3.1: TH: carum~3arur. astuto-maldito: 'la serpiente era el mas astuto 3 ( arur} de todos los animales salvajes'; 3.14: Tor cuanto hiciste tal, maldita (>drur) seras entre todos los ganados'. Es una asonancia popular que se adjudica a la serpiente, en el binomio: serpiente-astuta. 'Desnudos' (caarummim Gen. 2.25) y 'astuto' (cartim Gen. 3.1); la serpiente era el mas astuto de los animales (cdrum Gen. 3.1), llega a ser el mas miserable (3arAr Gen. 3.14). Tg: 'La serpiente era el mas astuto (hkyni) de todos los animales de la superficie de los campos' (TN). 'La serpiente era el mas astuto para el mal (hkym lby$) de todas las bestias salvajes' (TJI). 3.14: Torque has hecho esto, maldita seras, serpiente, entre todos los animales domesticos y entre todas las bestias que hay sobre la faz del campo' (TN). Torque hiciste esto, maldita (lyf) seras entre todos los ganados y entre todos los animales del campo' (TJI). El Tg. mantiene el mismo sentido, y lo traduce asi, pero no puede conservar el mismo juego semantico. 13. Gen. R. 18.4.

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Midras: Esta relacion de Gen. 3.1 con Gen. 3.14 se establece en el midras a nombre de R. Meir: 'Segun la grandeza de la serpiente asi fue su caida: porque ella era mds astuta que todos (Gen. 3.1) fue mas maldita que todos' (Gen. 3.14).14 3.20: TH: hawwd-hay: Eva-vida: 'El hombre puso a su mujer nombre de Eva (Hawwd), por haber sido ella madre de todos los vivientes (hay)'. El TH une el nombre de Eva (hawwd) con vida (hayyd)', la TOB traduce: 'Eva, e.d. la Viviente'. Tg: 'El hombre llamo a su mujer con el nombre de Eva (Hawwd), porque ella fue la madre de todos los vivientes (hyy3)'(TN). 'Y Adan llamo a su mujer con el nombre de Eva (Hwh\porque ella fue la madre de todos los hombres (bny nP)'(TJI, TO). El juego de rafces se continua en parte en el Tg. (TN), pero TJI-TO especifican mas, hablando de 'todos los hombres'. Midras: 'Y el hombre llamo a su mujer Eva-Hawwah e.d. vida (Gen. 3.2). Le fue dada como un consejero, pero hizo de espia como la serpiente. R. Aha interpreto: "La serpiente fue tu (de Eva) serpiente (e.d. seductora), y tu eres la serpiente de Adan";15 es un juego de palabras entre hawwd que se pone en relacion con hawweh (de dafat,una opinion), e.d. para emitir una opinion, y con hiwya, la serpiente. Como la serpiente habia tenido un espia cuando Dios mando a Adan que se apartase del arbol prohibido, asi ella se dirigio a la serpiente para escuchar cuando el la incite a la desobediencia, y al final persuadio a Adan. Madre (>em) de todos los vivientes: R. Simeon ben Eleazar dijo: Eso significa que ella esta asociada con (cim) todos los vivientes. R. Simon dijo: Madre de todos los vivientes significa la madre de toda la vida,16 incluso de la de los demonios.'17 4.1: TH: qayin-qamti: Cain-compre: 'Conocio el hombre a Eva, su mujer, la cual concibio y pario a Cain (Qayiri),diciendo: "He adquirido (qaniti) un varon con ayuda de Yahweh"'. Eva une el nombre de su primer hijo (Cain) con un antiguo verbo semftico (qdna) que significa 'procrear' (TOB) o 'adquirir' y subraya el papel que Dios desempena en su nacimiento (cf. tambien Gen. 29.31; 30.2, 22; 1 Sam. 1.6, 11). Tg: 'Adam conocio a Eva, su mujer, ella concibio y engendro a Cain, y ella dijo: "He aqui que un hijo me ha sido dado de delante de 14. 15. 16. 17.

Gen. R. 19.1. Gen.R. 20.11. Gen.R. 20.11. Gen. R. 24.6.

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Yahweh'" (TN). 'Adam conocio a Eva, su mujer, que estaba encinta de Sammael, el angel de Yahweh (y concibio y dio a luz a Cam, y dijo ella: he adquirido por hombre al angel de Yahweh)' (TJI). TJI en el ms. de Londres omite lo que hemos anadido entre parentesis, tornado de la Editio Princeps del TJI. En ambos casos el Tg. repite la etimologia fonica del nombre de Cain que se encuentra en el TH. Sammael ya habia aparecido anteriormente ante la mujer: 'y la mujer vio a Sammael, el angel de la muerte, y tuvo temor' (TJI a Gen. 3.6). En la Editio Princeps del TJI se encuentra una parafrasis diferente: 'Adam conocio a Eva, su mujer, que deseaba al angel. Ella concibio y dio a luz a Cam. Y ella dijo: "Yo he adquirido un hombre, el angel de Yahweh"' (TJI Edit. Pr.). Sammael es un angel caido, que tiene gran importancia en las leyendas judias, 18 y aparece como tentador y enemigo del hombre, en estrecha relacion con la serpiente.19 Dicho nombre significaria, segun E.E. Urbach: 'aquel que se hizo a si mismo dios'.20 Tal angel se encuentra tambien en la literatura apocrifa.21 Este midras nacio de la diferencia entre Gen. 5.3 (que menciona la semajanza entre Set y su padre) y Gen. 4.1 (que nada dice de la semejanza de Cam). Que Cain sea hijo de Sammael es una tradicion muy repetida en la literatura judia,22 y en Jn 8.44 leemos que Jesus acusa a los fariseos de ser hijos del diablo.23 Midras: 'R. Isaac dijo: Cuando una mujer ve que ella ha concebido hijos exclama: "He aqui que mi marido esta ahora en mi posesion".'24 e.d. que un hijo une al marido a su mujer; por eso traduce: Yo ahora tengo un hombre (e.d. Adan) en mi posesion, habiendo dado a luz a Cain.

18. L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Filadelfia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909-1946), VII, p. 141. 19. G. Friedlander, Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (Londres: Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1916), p. 21. 20. Urbach, The Sages, p. 761. 21. Ascension de Isaias 1.8. 22. Bowker, The Targums and Rabbinic Literature, p. 136; Urbach, The Sages, p. 169; A. M. Goldberg, 'Kain: Sohn des Menschen oder Sohn der Schlange?', Judaica 25 (1969), pp. 203-21. 23. N.A. Dahl, 'Der Erstgeborene Satans und der Vater des Teufels (Polyk 7, 1 und Joh 8, 44)', Aphophoreta Festschrift E. Haenchen (Berlin, 1964), pp. 70-84; R. Le Deaut, Liturgie juive et Nouveau Testament (Roma: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1965), pp. 59-61. 24. Gen. R. 22.2.

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4.2,8: TH: hebel-Abel: aliento: 'Mas tarde volvio a parir, pariendo a su hermano Abel...Y cuando estaban en el campo, acometio Cain a su hermano Abel y le mato': En el texto subyace el sentido etimologico del nombre Abel, que se interpreta como vida corta, efimera, y por consiguiente se extinguio como un soplo o un aliento. Tg: 'Ella dio a luz seguidamente a su hermano, Abel. Abel fue pastor de ganado menor y Cam cultivaba la tierra...Sobre el tema estaban los dos disputando en campo abierto, cuando se levanto Cain contra su hermano Abel y lo mato' (TN). 'Ella dio a luz seguidamente de Adam, su marido, Abel y su (hermana) gemela. Abel fue pastor de ganado menor y Cain era un hombre que cultivaba la tierra... Y con motive de estas palabras estuvieron disputando en el campo. Y se levanto Cam contra su hermano Abel y hundio una piedra en su frente y lo mato' (TJI). En las principales recensiones targumicas (TN, TgFragm 440, 110, Moscu 264, Geniza B y Tosefta a Genesis 4.8) encontramos implicita la derivation popular, pero no se especifica. Midras: 'Esto corrobora lo que R. Yosua ben Qarha dijo: Ascendieron a la cama dos y descendieron siete';25 se refiere a la tradition judia que mantiene que nacieron con Cam una hermana gemela, y con Abel dos hermanas gemelas.26 Diferentes motives de disputa se exponen en la literatura midrasica: dividir la tierra (tierra—bienes muebles), edificacion del Templo en terreno propio, la primera Eva.27 El instrumento con que Cain mato a Abel fue un baston (R. Simeon, cf. Gen 4.23), una piedra (los rabinos, TJI).28 4.17: TH: hanok-hdnak: Hanok-edifico: 'Y pario a Hanok, y, edificando (hdnak) el por entonces una ciudad, llamo a tal ciudad con el nombre de su hijo Hanok'. Este nombre, y otros similares, evocan la dedication de una ciudad o de un monumento. Tg: 'Y Cain conocio a su mujer, ella concibio y dio a luz a Enoch (Hanok).El construyo (hwh bny) una ciudad (NM: ciudades) y llamo a la ciudad segun el nombre de su hijo Enoch (HanokY(TN, TJI). El Tg continua la figura etiologica del TH, si bien la semantica no le permite una imitation literal del TH.

25. 26. 27. 28.

Gen. R. 22.2-3. b. Sanh. 38b, 58b. Gen. R. 22.7. Gen. R. 22.8.

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Midras: Estas ciudades quedan como un memorial perenne para deshonra del nombre a quien ban sido dedicadas.29 4.21: TH: yubal-yobel: 'El nombre de su hermano era Yubal, que fue el padre de todos los tanedores de citara y caramillo'. En el TH probablemente subyace una etimologia popular de Yubal, como si procediese de Yobel (toque del cuerno). Tg: 'El nombre de su hermano fue Yubal: fue el el padre de todos los que tocan la citara y la flauta (NM: todos los que tocan la citara y el caramillo)' (TN). 'Y el nombre de su hermano era Yubal; el fue sefior de todos los que tienen por oflcio el canto con la citara y la flauta' (TJI). El Tg. sigue directamente al TH, y refleja una misma interpretacion, sin hacer especial hincapie en su aspecto etimologico. Midras: 'Y el nombre de su hermano fue Yubal; el fue el padre de todos los que emplean el harpa y el caramillo', e.d. los que tocan el organo y los flautistas.30 4.22: TH: Tubal-qayin-forjador: 'Tambien Silla engendro a Tubalqayin, forjador (IdteS)de toda herramienta de cobre y hierro'. El termino hebreo (cf. 1 Sam. 13.20) significa 'herrero, forjador', tambien 'reja'. Tg: 'Y Silla tambien ella engendro a Tubal Qayin (twbl qyri), artesano de toda tecnica del bronce y del hierro' (TN). 'Tambien Silla dio a luz a Tubal Qayin, sefior de todos los artifices entendidos en el trabajo del bronce y del hierro' (TJI). El Tg. se limita a traducir con pequenas variantes el TH, pero tampoco se hace consciente de la etimologia popular que subyace al TH, si bien entiende que se trata de artifices en bronce y en hierro. Midras: 'R. Yosua dijo en nombre de R. Levi: este hombre perfecciono (tibbel) el pecado de Cain: Cain asesino, aunque le faltaban armas para asesinar, puesto que el era forjador de todo instrumento cortante';31 asi interpreta Tubal-qayin como que perfecciono (tibbel) la obra de Cain. 5.28-29: TH: noa/z-Noe: 'Lamek llevaba de vida ciento ochenta y dos anos cuando engendro un hijo, a quien llamo con el nombre de Noe (noah), diciendo: "Este nos consolara (yenahaamenu)en nuestro trabajo y en la fatiga de nuestras manos"'. En esta narracion el nombre de Noe (noah) se pone en relacion con el termino hebreo que significa

29. Gen, R. 23.1. 30. Gen. R. 23.3. 31. Gen. R. 23.3.

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'reconfortar, restaurar' (nhm, cf. Is. 40.1) y sugiere que Dios salvara a la humanidad por medio de el (cf. Gen. 6.8). Tg: 'Y habia vivido Lamek ciento ochenta y dos anos y engendro un hijo. El le llamo por nombre Noe, diciendo: "El nos consolara (ynhm) de nuestras obras malas y de los robos de nuestras manos y de la maldicion de la tierra por el Verbo de delante de Yahweh"' (TN). 'Habia vivido Lamek ciento ochenta y dos anos cuando engendro" un hijo. El le llamo por nombre Noe, diciendo: "El nos consolara (ynhmynn3) de nuestro trabajo que queda sin exito y de la fatiga de nuestras manos (provocada) por la tierra que Yahweh ha maldecido a causa de las falias de los hijos de los hombres"' (TJI). En el Tg. se conserva la misma derivacion etimologica popular que en el TH, aunque las razones del consuelo scan un tanto ampliadas. Midras: Segun R. Yohanan el nombre no corresponde a la interpretation que se le da, ni la interpretation corresponde al nombre. 'El texto tendria que haber dicho o: "Este mismo nos dara descanso (yanihennu)" o: "el le Ilam6 por nombre Nahman, diciendo: Este ye-nahamenu", sin embargo Noe no corresponde a ye-nahamenu'; lo mismo afirmaba el Resh Laqis. R. Leazar dice que recibio el nombre de Noe por su sacrificio que fue aceptado como suave olor (riihoah) (Gen. 8.21), y R. Yose ben R. Hanina dijo que se le llamo Noe porque el area descanso (wattanah) (Gen. 8.4).'32 El midras aprovecha la misma derivacion del TH, pero la razon del consuelo varia, e incluso introduce una nueva derivacion, refiriendose al sacrificio que realiza Noe despues del diluvio. 9.27: TH: yapt-yepet, Yafet-Belleza: 'Dilate (yapt) Dios a Jafet y more en las tiendas de Sem'. La TOB traduce: 'Que Dios seduzca a Yafety more'. Tg: 'jQue Yahweh dilate (ypf) las fronteras de Jafet! jQue la Gloria de su Shekinah more en medio de las tiendas de Sem! jQue Canaan sea para ellos esclavo reducido a servidumbre!' (TN). 'jQue Yahweh embellezca (y$pr) las fronteras de Jafet! jQue sus hijos se conviertan en proselitos y moren en la escuela de Sem! jQue Canaan sea su esclavo!' (TJI). El Tg emplea dos raices: ypt (dilatar, TN) y y$pr (embellezca, TJI), que tambien aprovecha la version de Aquila;33 TN transcribe y traduce directamente el TH, TJI interpreta una raiz diferente. El TJI aprovecha el

32. Gen. R. 25.2. 33. D. Barthelemy, Les devanciers d'Aquila (Leiden: Brill, 1963), p. 152.

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significado de 'tienda' como 'casa de estudio', que tambien se encuentra en TN y TJI a Gen. 2S.27.34 Midras: Que Dios dilate a Jafet, lo refiere a Giro que ordeno que se reconstruyese el Templo. Y que el habile en las tiendas de Sem: Bar Kappara lo aplicaba a las palabras de la Torah que tienen que ser pronunciadas en la lengua de Jafet (e.d. en griego) en las tiendas de Sem. Esto se referiria a la Septuaginta.35 R. Judan decia: De esto aprendemos que la traduccion de la Biblia esta permitida, e.d. el Targum (Neh. 8.8). Aqui explica Neh. 8.8 (Escritura, traduccion, acentos, comienzo de los versiculos).36 10.25: TH: peleg—division: 'A Eber nacieronle dos hijos: el nombre del uno fue Peleg, porque en sus dias se dividio (niplegd)la tierra'. El termino hebreo significa 'dividir', pero puede referirse a la reparticion de tierras de pasto, o de las tierras cultivables. De el habria descendido Abraham (Gen. 11.18-26). Tg: 'A Eber le nacieron dos hijos: el nombre de uno de ellos es Peleg, porque en su tiempo, los habitantes de la tierra se separaron(}tplgwY (TN). 'A Eber le nacieron dos hijos: el nombre de uno es Peleg, porque en su tiempo, la tierra fue dividida (3ytplygty(TJI). En ambos Targumim se continua la etimologia popular expresada en el TH. Midras: supone que Peleg significa 'division' porque en sus dias la tierra se dividio. Dijo R. Jose: los antiguos le llamaron conforme a los sucesos de sus dias, puesto que ellos conocieron su genealogia. Pero nosotros no conocemos nuestra genealogia, para llamarnos segun nuestros padres. R. Simeon ben Gamaliel dijo: Los antiguos, porque ellos podian confiar en el Espiritu Santo, se llamaban a si mismos en referencia a los sucesos que podian venir; pero nosotros no podemos darnos a nosotros mismos el aval del Espiritu Santo para ser nombrados segun nuestros padres.37 Fundamentalmente se sigue la derivacion del TH, pero despues da una interpretation general de toda la onomastica, y es que se trata de una inspiration del Espiritu Santo para imponerse nombres en la epoca antigua.

34. G.B. Sarfatti, 'The Tent = The House of Study', Tarbiz 38 (1968), pp. 8789; Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, V, p. 274; Bowker, The Targums and Rabbinic Literature, p. 178. 35. b. Meg. 9b. 36. Todo el pasaje en b. Meg. 3a; b. Ned. 37b. 37. Gen. R. 37.7.

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10.25: TH: Yoqtan-qatan: 'Y su hermano se llamo Yoqtan'. El TH no hace ninguna derivation de esta raiz. Tg: 'Y el nombre de su hermano fue Yoqtan' (TN, TJI). Tampoco el Tg se detiene en su etimologia popular. Midras: 'Y ^por que fue llamado Yoqtan? Porque el minimize (maqtiri) la importancia de sus negocios.'38 R. Aha dijo: '^Por que fue llamado Yoqtan? Porque el se humillo (qatan).'' R. Hunia dijo: 'jSabemos que en su nacimiento el fue el mas joven! Pero el joven (sdcir)significa que el se redujo (mesa'ir) a si mismo. ^Que aprendemos de eso? Que el obtuvo el derecho de primogenitura. Pues si un hombre grande se contenta con una position humilde, tanto mas el es recompensado.'39 Dos derivaciones se ofrecen, una dirigida directamente al nombre entendiendo que es qatan la base (pequeno), pero resulta que es el mas joven, y entonces se aprovecha tambien la raiz zfr(joven) para una nueva signification, que reafirma el sentido anterior. 11.9: TH: babel (puerta de los dioses, Bab-i\am)-balal: 'Por ello se la denomino Babel, porque alii confundio (balal) Yahweh el habla de toda la tierra'. Balal se traduce por confundir, y la contrapartida de la division de los pueblos por sus lenguas se reunificara en Pentecostes (Act. 2). Tg: 'Por esto llamo su nombre Babel, porque asi confundio (frbb) Yahweh las lenguas de todos los habitantes de la tierra (NM: El Verbo de Yahweh la lengua de toda la tierra) y desde alii Yahweh (NM: el Verbo de Yahweh) los esparcio sobre la superficie de toda la tierra' (TN). 'Por esto llamo su nombre Babel, porque alii confundio (crbb) Yahweh el lenguaje de todos los habitantes de la tierra y de alii los disperse Yahweh sobre la faz de toda la tierra' (TJI). El Tg. mantiene el sentido del TH, pero no su tenor verbal, sin embargo TJI Gen 11.8 explica como se realize la division de lenguas: 'Y se revelo el Verbo de Yahweh sobre la ciudad, y con El los setenta angeles que se correspondfan con las setenta naciones, llevando cada uno la lengua de su nation y los signos de su escritura en la mano. Y los disperso desde alii sobre la superficie de toda la tierra en setenta lenguas y uno no entendia lo que hablaba otro y se mataban entre si; y cesaron de construir la ciudad.' Midras: Un discipulo de R. Yohanan estaba sentado delante de el y no pudo entender su ensenanza: '^Cual es la razon de esto?', pregunto. 'Es 38. Gen. R. 37.7. 39. Gen. R. 6.4.

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porque yo soy un exiliado de mi casa', replico el. '^De donde vienes tu?', 'De Borsif, replico. 'Ese no es su nombre', anadio, 'sino Balsif, de acuerdo con el texto. Porque alii el Sefior confundio (balal) la lengua (sepai)de toda la tierra.' Borsif era una ciudad cercana a Babilonia, y R. Yohanan identified con Babel, poniendo de relieve al mismo tiempo que tendria que llamarse Balsif, nombre que esta compuesto por balal y sdpd, y asi demostraria su origen. 11.28: TH: ^wr-fuego: 'Y murio Haran en vida de Terah, su padre, en su pais natal, Ur de los caldeos'. El TH no aprovecha la posibilidad de dualidad que le ofrece el significado, popularmente interpretado como toponimo y como nombre comun: Ur-fuego. Tg: 'Haran murio en vida de Terah, su padre, en su pais natal, en el homo de fuego de los caldeos' (TN). 'Y sucedio cuando Nemrod hubo arrojado a Abram en el horno de fuego, porque no queria rendir un culto a sus idolos, pues el fuego no habian podido quemarle; entonces el corazon de Haran se dividio, diciendo: "Si vence Nemrod, estare de su parte, y si vence Abram estare de su parte. Cuando todo el pueblo que estaba alii vio que el fuego no habia tenido poder sobre Abram, dijo en su corazon. ^No esta Haran, hermano de Abram, lleno de adivinaciones y encantamientos? El, pues, ha usado un ensalmo sobre el fuego para que no quemara a su hermano. En el acto cay6 fuego de lo alto del cielo y lo consumio, y murio Haran a la vista de su padre Terah cuando fue quemado en el pais de su nacimiento, en el horno de fuego que hicieron los caldeos para su hermano Abram"' (TJI). El TN reconoce la duplicidad de sentido del toponimo Ur: lugar de Mesopotamia-fuego (horno de fuego), en cambio el TJI explica ampliamente la razon de la haggada: no solamente es el fuego el que entra en la explicacion, sino que se da la razon de dicho fuego: Abram se nego a adorar a los idolos mesopotamicos, se le quiso quemar, pero no hubo exito, en cambio fue Haran, hermano de Abrahan el que murio, debido a que estaba lleno de sortilegios. Midras: Segun R. Hiyya Terah fue fabricante de idolos, y Abram los vendia. Despues de convertirse Abram fue puesto a prueba. Haran estaba indeciso: 'Si Abram sale victorioso (de la prueba), yo dire— pensaba Haran—que yo tengo la creencia de Abram, mientras que si Nemrod sale victorioso, dire que yo estoy de parte de Nemrod. Cuando Abram descendio al horno de fuego y se salvo, el (Nemrod) le pregunto: "^De que creencia eres tu?", "de la de Abram", respondio. Despues le agarro y le arrojo al horno; sus entretelas se chamuscaron y murio en

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presencia de su padre. De ahi que esta escrito, "y Haran murio en presencia (calpene) de su padre Terah".'40 Tambien el midras aprovecha la duplicidad de sentido de >ur como toponimo y como nombre comun. 14.18: TH: Melkisedeq-rey de justicia: 'Entonces Melkisedeq, rey de Salem, saco pan y vino, pues era sacerdote del Dios Altisimo'. Otro rey cananeo de Jerusalem llevo un nombre afin, Adoni-sedeq (Jos. 10.1). Melkisedeq, con su nombre evoca las ideas de soberania y de justicia (o prosperidad), esta citado en el Sal. 110 y considerado por el NT como una de las figuras del Mesias (cf. Heb. 7). Tg: 'Melkisedeq, rey de Salem—que es el gran Sem—ofrecio pan y vino, porque era sacerdote y ejercia el sacerdocio soberano delante del Dios Altisimo' (TN). 'El juez justo—que es Sem, hijo de Noe—, rey de Jerusalen, salio al encuentro de Abram y el ofrecio pan y vino; en ese tiempo, el oficiaba delante del Dios Altisimo' (TJI). Segun el Tg. Salem se interpreta como Jerusalen. Algunos piensan que Salem seria Salim, al noreste de Nablus.41 F. Josefo tambien conocia la identificacion de Salem con Jerusalen,42 y es lo que sucede en el apocrifo del Genesis de Qumran: 'El vino a Salem, que es Jerusalen, mientras que Abram estaba acampado en el valle Shaven'.43 Midras: 'Y Melki Sedeq': este lugar hace a sus habitantes justos (leido como dos palabras como en el TH). 'Y el rey de Sedeq': El Senor de Sedeq (Jos. 10.1), como 'Adoni-Sedeq'. Jerusalen es llamada 'Sedeq' (justo), como esta escrito, 'Sedeq' (justo) se alojo en ella' (Is. 1.21). 'Rey de Salem' (Shalem): R. Isaac el babilonio dijo: Esto implica que nacio circuncidado (traduce 'shalem' completo, e.d. el rey 'complete', cf. Gen. 17.1-10).44 16.11: TH: Mmac ^/-escucho Dios: 'He aqui que estas encinta y pariras un hijo, al que pondras de nombre Ismael, porque Yahweh ha escuchado ($amac) tu afliccion'. Al nombre de Ismael se le da la traduccion de 'Dios escucha' (Mmac J£7), como otros nombres, esta formado como el resto de teoforos, igual que Israel, Ezequiel, etc. Tg: 'He aqui que estas encinta y tu vas a dar a luz un hijo. Tu le llamaras por nombre Ismael porque tu afliccion ha sido escuchada 40. Gen.R. 38.13. 41. J.A. Fitzmyer, The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave I. A Commentary (BibOr 19; Roma: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1971), p. 172. 42. F. Josefo, Antiq. 7.3, 2 §67; Bel. Jud. 6.10,1 §438; Contra Ap. 1.22 §174. 43. GenApoc 22,13; cf. Fitzmyer, The Genesis Apocryphon, pp. 72s. y 173. 44. Gen. R. 43.6.

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delante de Yahweh (crwm $myc qdm yyy)'. En este caso TN conserva la misma raiz que el TH, en cambio desaparece en TJI: 'He aqui que tu estas encinta y que vas a dar a luz un hijo. Tu le llamaras por nombre Ismael, porque tu afliccion esta patente delante de Yahweh (>rwm gly qdm yyy)\ Midras: A proposito de este verso, el midras habla simplemente de que tres individuos fueron llamados por sus nombres antes de nacer: Isaac, Salomon y Josias; y algunos anaden que fue tambien Ismael, entre los paganos, e.d. entre los no judios.45 Pero a proposito de 'el habitara en presencia de todos sus hermanos', se nota que dice 'el habitara': mientras que en otras partes se lee: 'el cayo' (Gen. 25.17). En tanto que Abraham vivio 'el habitara', inmediatamente que murio 'el cayo'. Antes de que el hubiese extendido su mano contra el Templo, 'el habitara', tan pronto como extendio su mano contra el Templo, 'el cayo' en este mundo 'el habitara', en el mundo futuro 'el cayo'. Bacher penso que con esto se aludia a que Ismael (no se debe aqui identificar con Roma) ataco el Templo, alude o bien al Aretas, rey de Nabatea, que ataco a Aristobulo y sitio a Jerusalen,46 o al Principe de Arabia que se unio al ejercito de Vespasiano. 16.14: TH: b"er lahay ro^f-pozo del viviente que me ve: 'Por eso se denomino "Pozo del Viviente que me ve" (beyer lahay ro3i)\ Quiza el nombre designaba una divinidad antigua local, que ahora se pone en relation con la aparicion del Dios de Israel, que se especifica en un juego de palabras basado en el verbo 'ver'. Tg: 'Por eso se llamo: "Pozo junto al cual se ha aparecido aquel que subsiste por todos los siglos'" (TN). 'Por eso se llamo al pozo "Pozo sobre el que se aparecio quien vive y permanece"' (TJI). El Tg. traduce el sentido, pero evita el antropomorfismo, huyendo de la version literal, y a la vez da una definition teologica de Dios. Midras: 'R. Aibu lo explico: "Tu eres quien ve los sufrimientos de los perseguidos"' ,47 16.15: TH: Ismael-$awace/: 'Mas tarde, Agar pariole un hijo a Abram, el cual al hijo que Agar le habia parido pusole por nombre Ismael'. 21.17: 'Entonces, Dios oyo la voz del muchacho (wayyi$mac 3 Eldhini), y el angel de Dios llamo a Agar desde el cielo y dijole: ^ Qué

45. Gen. R. 45.8. 46. F. Josefo, Antiq. XIV, 2, §1.

47. Gen. R. 45.10.

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tienes, Agar? No temas, porque Dios ha oido (ki $amaf 3Elohim) la voz del chico desde el sitio donde esta.' Tg: 'Y Agar pario a Abram un hijo. Y Abram llamd el nombre del hijo que le pario Agar, Ismael' (TN, TJI). 21.17: 'Y Yahweh oyo la voz (w$myf qdm yyy) (NM: el Verbo de Yahweh ha oido la voz del nifio) del nino, y el angel de Yahweh llamo a Agar desde los cielos y le dijo: ^Que tienes, Agar? No temas, porque Yahweh ha oido la voz de la oracion del nino en el lugar donde esta' (TN). ' Y la voz del nifio fue oida delante de Yahweh (w$myfqdm yyy) por el merito de Abraham y el angel de Yahweh llamo a Agar desde los cielos y le dijo: ^Que tienes, Agar? No tengas miedo, porque la voz del muchacho ha sido oida delante de Yahweh (3rwm Smyc qdm vvv) y no le ha juzgado por las malas acciones que va a ejecutar, sino que por el merito de Abraham se ha compadecido de el en el lugar donde esta' (TJI). Si en TN-TJI Gen 16.15 no indican nada sobre el significado del nombre, porque ya lo habian hecho anteriormente, pero en Gen. 21.17 vuelven a la etimologia popular de Ismael, mas con distintos matices: Yahweh ha oido la oracion del muchacho (TN-TJI), pero por merito de Abraham (TJI). Midras: Si en Gen. 16.15 no repite la derivacion popular, en Gen. 21.17 dice que el angel de Dios llamo a Hagar por causa de Abraham, y si Dios oyo la voz del muchacho fue por causa del mismo muchacho, por cuanto las plegarias de una persona enferma hechas para si misma son mas eficaciones que las de cualquiera otra persona.48 17.5: TH: 3abram-}abrahdm:Padre excelso: 'No se llamara mas tu nombre Abram, sino que sera tu nombre Abraham, pues padre de multitud de naciones (3ab hamori) te he constituido'. 'Padre de multitudes' (>ab hamori) es un nuevo apelativo que Dios da a Abraham, 'el padre de los creyentes'. En realidad las dos formas (AbramAbraham) parecen solamente variantes dialectales de un mismo nombre, que significaria: 'el padre (la divinidad protectora del clan) es elevado', o tambien: 'el padre ama'. Tg: 'Y no se llamara mas tu nombre Abram, y tu nombre sera Abraham, porque te he puesto para congregacion de multitud de pueblos justos (3rwm Iqhl knSt 3wmyn sdyqyn)'(TN). 'Y no se llamara ya tu nombre Abram, pues tu nombre sera Abraham porque te he designado padre de una gran multitud de pueblos (I'b sgy swgcy fmmyny(TJI). El Tg. se hace simplemente eco de la misma derivacion popular del TH. 48. Gen.R. 53.14.

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Midras: 'Bar Kappara decia: 'Cada vez que Abraham es llamado "Abram" transgrede un mandamiento positivo. R. Levi dijo: "Un mandamiento positivo y un mandamiento negative". Tu nombre ya no se llamara Abram' (Gen. 17.5), esto es un mandamiento negativo. 'Sino que tu nombre sera Abraham' (Gen. 17.5), esto es un mandamiento positivo. Pero seguramente los hombres de la Gran Asamblea le llamaron Abram, segun esta escrito: "Tu...que escogiste a Abram" (Neh. 9.7). Es diferente porque El le escogio mientras fue Abram. Por lo mismo, por analogia, ^cuando se llama a Sara "Saray" infringe un mandamiento positivo? No, porque solamente a Abraham le fue impuesto respeto a ella.'49 17.15: TH: sard-saray: Senora: 'Dijo tambien Dios a Abraham: "A Saray, tu mujer, no la llamaras mas Saray, sino que su nombre ha de ser Sara"'. Sara, como Saray, significa 'princesa'. Tg: 'Y dijo Yahweh (NM: el Verbo de Yahweh) a Abraham: "Tu mujer Saray, no llamaras su nombre Saray sino que su nombre sera Sara"' (TN, TJI). Ni el TH, ni el Tg. se hacen cargo de dar una explicacion del cambio de onomastica. Midras: El nombre original era Saray, terminando en yod\ el valor numeral de la yod es de 10; ahora bien si este valor numerico lo dividimos por la mitad, obtenemos que de una yod salen dos he, que tiene el valor de 5; una he se anadio a Sarah y la obra se anadio a Abraham. De ahi que Abraham fuese coronado (su nombre fue cambiado para expresar su grandeza, cf. Gen. 17.5) por Sarah, pero Sarah no fue coronada por el. Tambien se pone en esta misma relacion el cambio que se verifica con el nombre de Oseas: 'Y Moises llamo Oseas (hw&) al hijo de Nun Josue (y/zwF)'50. 17.19: TH: yishdq: Isaac—'Y contesto Dios: "Sara, tu esposa, en verdad, te parira un hijo, a quien pondras por nombre Isaac, y establecere mi alianza con el en alianza eterna y con su descedencia despues de el"'. El nombre de Isaac se relaciona con la risa del padre (17.17): 'Entonces postrose Abraham rostro en tierra y se rio (wayyishdq), diciendo en su interior: "^A un centenario le va a nacer un hijo y Sara la nonagenaria va a dar a luz?"'; y esta risa vuelve a aparecer Gen. 21.6: 'Por lo cual dijo Sara: "Reir (fhoq)me hizo Dios. Todo el que lo oiga se me reira (yishdq/?)'".

49. Gen. R. 46.8. 50. Gen. R. 47.1.

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Tg: 'Y dijo Yahweh a Abraham: No obstante, he aqui que tu mujer Sara te va a parir un hijo y llamaras su nombre Isaac y establecere mi Alianza con el como Alianza perpetua y con sus hijos despues de el' (TN). 'Y dijo Yahweh: En verdad Sara tu mujer te dara a luz un hijo y llamaras su nombre Isaac, y confirmare mi pacto con el como pacto eterno par sus hijos detras de el' (TJI). Gen. 17.17: 'Y Abraham se postro (NM: se incline) sobre su rostro y se admiro (wtmh) y dijo en su corazon: ^Acaso a los cien anos me sera posible engendrar hijos? 11 Surely, this instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. 12 It is not in the heavens, that you should say, 'who amongst us can go up to the heavens and get it for us...' 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who among

18. Mentioning Gideon from the tribe of Manasseh in the targumic rendering of the blessing to the tribe of Dan is peculiar. See Maher's note in his translation of this verse. 19. For parallels in rabbinic literature and further discussion of this tradition see M. Perez Fernandez, Tradiciones Mesidnicas en el Targum Palestinense. Estudios exegeticos (Valencia and Jerusalem: Institution San Jeronimo, 1981), pp. 145-54. 20. See R.G. Marks, 'Dangerous Hero: Rabbinic Attitudes toward Legendary Warriors', HUCA 54 (1983), pp. 181-97.

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us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us...' 14 No; the thing is very close to you... Tg. Neof.rpTO" "1 N"H] n^QD in p mn TfT> ItfEb wmN «7! K'ara vb

mn 'it> -Brak WTTIK trn ran na^ nnu ]B tf?i...f? nrr ncn wxb wn Tip DTW...]1? nrr pen rm nan "ipQ^ mrr H traa HIPD in f? mrf? Kn:nD ]Dnrf7 The law is not in the heavens, that one should say: 'Would that we had one like Moses the prophet who would go up to heaven and fetch it for us...' Nor is the law beyond the great sea that one should say: 'Would that we had one like Jonah the prophet who would descend into the depths of the great sea and bring up the law for us...' for the word is very near to you.

An identical tradition to v. 12 (but not to v. 13) appears also in the Fragment Targum (in both versions) while an identical tradition to v. 13 appears in the marginal notes of Targum Neofiti and probably also in MS. Vatican of the Fragment Targum.21 This tradition was dealt with extensively and accurately by Martin McNamara,22 who showed its relationship to the New Testament (Rom. 10.6-8: 'Do not say in your heart "who will ascend into heaven?"...or "who will descend into the deep'") when both the targumim and Paul understand the words D"n "Ql? bto Tnjr-n ('Who can cross to the other side of the sea') to mean actually descending to its depths. The polemical and current nature of the targumic tradition in Targum Neofiti is apparent. However, it seems that it focuses primarily on v. 12, which deals in anticipation of the arrival of one like Moses the prophet, that is, a second Moses. Both the Christians and the Samaritans built their religions to some extent on this idea, and the author of the targum wishes to annul this notion completely. Ascension to receive the Torah is a regular motif in the biblical literature connected with Moses;23 however, the reason for the introduction of the prophet Jonah in this context is not clear. There is nothing in the description of Jonah in the Bible to justify presenting him as one who went down into the sea to obtain the Torah. On the contrary, Jonah flees God and reaches the depths of the sea as punishment for his behaviour, and the fish's belly is the place where he is said to have thought about his defective behaviour. 21. The text is n31 [... ] «"D] in, but Klein is most probably right in assuming that it should be read as niPD. 22. McNamara, The New Testament, pp. 70-81. 23. E.g., Exod. 19.2, 20; 34.2; Deut. 9.9

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Moreover, the targum of the verse is as follows: 'Nor is the law beyond the great sea that one would say: Would that we had one like Jonah... who would descend into the depths of the great sea and bring up the law for us'. The change24 from mi na^ 121? p (= 'beyond the great sea') to mi rrDH ^IpD^ (= 'into the depth of the great sea') leads me to believe that the mention of Jonah is a secondary unorganic insertion. I would interpret it as a mechanical, automatic translation by someone who wished to make a full comparison between v. 12 (speaking about Moses' ascension to Heaven) and v. 13 (speaking, according to his understanding, about descent to the depths of the sea) while incorporating mention of the prophet Jonah (is there another biblical figure who could be mentioned in this context?) without going into the full significance of the addition. Be that as it may, barring this passage and the mention of Daniel's three companions, Targum Neofiti does not add post-pentateuchal figures—except according to the rules mentioned above—and it seems that the targumic world reflected in this text adhered to an unwritten rule to preserve the pentateuchal framework. The situation in PseudoJonathan which contains 19 more occurrences, is different. The post-pentateuchal figures mentioned only in Pseudo-Jonathan may be classified by additional subdivisions. One group containing four names surprisingly appears in genealogical lists: Job and his friend Eliphaz (Gen. 36.12), Elijah (Exod. 6.18) and Joab.25 For example: Gen. 36.12: pbo» DK ^xb TTTTI TDS p ^Xb lOfrs nnTT SJ3Tt\ Timna was a concubine of Esau's son Eliphaz; she bore Amalek to Eliphaz.

Tg.Ps.-J.: Kin pto rr isftvb rrr'n wj -a Tgfrxb wp'ra rmn laom arm man srtw Timna was a concubine of Eliphaz, son of Esau, and she bore Amalek to Eliphaz, he is Eliphaz the friend of Job.

It is clear that the words DTK! rrnan TS^K Kin ('he is Eliphaz the friend of Job') were inserted into the text in an unexpected place, not next to the mention of Eliphaz, but rather after the mention of Amalek. This 24. Cf. McNamara, The New Testament, p. 75. See also B.B. Levy, Targum Neophyti 1. A Textual Study, II (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), pp. 280-81. 25. Tg. Ps.-J. Gen. 46.17, as discussed above, mentions in a genealogical list also the anonymous 'clever woman' from Abel.

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addition, like the remaining additions in the genealogical lists, refreshes the otherwise dry list because of the surprising association it makes between various biblical stories and because it also diversifies the targumic text.26 A group of names which are unique to Pseudo-Jonathan appear at the beginning of the last chapter of the Pentateuch:

Deut. 34.1-3: p«n ^D fit* 'n in«Ti...i3] in ^N ZIKIQ m:ni;a rroa 'wi nupn iD-sn nKi...ntram D-ISR pa nsi ^nsi ^D n«i p i!> ufran PK "UEi i!J D-ionn TS irrr Moses went up from the steppes of Moab to Mount Nebo...and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh...the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar.

Tg.Ps.-J.: "13 ]Tootzn pmrn iifra pi nna\..rr...'rn trum n4? "ITOI |in:i...pi3 DU parmni -^ns] mna p-o *]*» rn p cm? pi rroQ Kni'pn ]Q ibn in^« "TQ^n rm^a rn...rro]Q viv pi low ~a puiai wzr^ -TD'TI nrr?: n"i YTTI And the Word of the Lord showed him... Jephthah from Gilead... and the victories of Samson the son of Manoah from the tribe of Dan and the thousand officers from the house of Naphtali who join Barak...and the mighty deeds of Gideon the son of Joash from the tribe of Manasseh... and the exile of the disciples of the pupils of Elijah that were exiled from the valley of Jericho and the exile of the disciples of Elisha.

This tradition in the targumic world, according to which Moses saw at the end of his days not only a geographical region but also, and primarily, the history of the Jewish people up to KirKTI 0'U17Q~IN miimD ^131 fcQ"lp "HlDl (The calamity of Armalagos27 the wicked and the wars of Gog), until the advent of the ultimate redeemer, the angel Michael28

26. Maher records Tanhuma (ed. Buber, Wayera 30) as the only parallel of this tradition, but cf. also Lekah Tov, Exod. 17.8 (ed. Buber, 117). 27. On Armalagos in the targums see S.H. Levey, 'The Date of Targum Jonathan to the Prophets', VT 21 (1971), pp. 193-95; R. Le Deaut and J. Robert, Targum du Pentateuque. IV. Deuteronome (SC, 271; Paris: Cerf, 1980), pp. 29899. Cf. E. Levine, The Aramaic Version of the Bible. Contents and Context (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988), pp. 46, 213. 28. On Michael and his roles in the targums, cf. Shinan, The Embroidered Targum, p. 126.

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(v. 4), is unique to Pseudo-Jonathan.29 In this group, as we have seen, six more names appear. The remaining nine occurrences in Pseudo-Jonathan cannot be generalized. They are employed to introduce the biblical plot or to clarify it, and they appear in diverse contexts. For example Gen. 31.21: ijfran TT V3S TO ozn iron TO i3jn...ppjr) rrm And (Jacob) fled...Soon he was across the Euphrates and heading toward the hill country of Gilead. Tg. PS.-J.:DTI« iifan vmsb pio-o1? Tsa* rv mm rna rr lain ap...^i ivh: pi nrEf -ova in1? wnano Tra1? THU jam «emp rrra «an And he went30...arose and crossed the Euphrates and set his face to go up to the mountain of Gilead for he saw in the Holy Spirit that his children would experience liberation there in the days of Jephthah who was from Gilead.

It appears that this is an unparalleled aggadic tradition.31 According to the pentateuchal story, Laban caught up with Jacob on Mount Gilead after seven days (v. 23). However, the meturgeman wishes to say that it was not coincidental, and that Jacob, with the help of God, decided to flee to this place because of the mountain's uniqueness. One final example: Exod. 9.20:

^ TnpaTO!mi?TO0'3H nins "OBD 'n -QlTO»Tn

Dim Those among Pharaoh's courtiers who feared the Lord's word brought their slaves and livestock indoors to safety.

Tg. PS.-J.:

rn TOJ? n' BD ninai Tnwa 'm Karen Vm mm nr« tvra i^ "in-:

Job, who feared the Lord's word, gathered his slaves and livestock into the house.

The meturgeman avoids the anonymity of this verse32 by making an analogy between KTn in the verse and NT in Job 1.8. In the next verse which says exactly the opposite ('But those who paid no regard to the word of the Lord') Pseudo-Jonathan identifies the subject of the verse as 29. For a partial parallel cf. Sifre Deut. 157. No parallel has been found concerning the tradition about Elijah and Elisha and their disciples. 30. Pseudo-Jonathan changes 'he fled' to 'he went' in order to preserve Jacob's honour, a very common trait of the targumic world. 31. Cf. Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis, p. 109, n. 15. 32. For parallels see y. Sota 5.6 (20c) and elsewhere.

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Balaam.33 Job's (and Balaam's) connections with Egypt and with the period of slavery in Egypt are mentioned often in the aggadic literature.34 It becomes clear, then, that Pseudo-Jonathan is distinct from Neofiti by virtue not only of quantity but also quality: the post-pentateuchal names appearing in it serve needs other than those of Targum Neofiti such as advancing and clarifying the biblical plot, diversifying the genealogical lists, and so on. Such a picture may be obtained from consideration of many more issues in which Pseudo-Jonathan holds fast to the common traditions of the other targumim but adds its own unique forms and thematic features. What I have tried to show in various areas35 regarding the features characterizing Pseudo-Jonathan within the Aramaic pentateuchal targumim is corroborated, in my opinion, by our present examination.

m The material compiled above raises additional questions about PseudoJonathan one of which is the absence in it of three names which appear only in Targum Neofiti: Jonah (whom I discussed and interpreted above), Esther, and Mordecai, who are mentioned in this targum only once and in the same verse: Exod. 17.16: TTT "1T1Q p^Qin 'rf? HQn^Q iT DD ^S 1* 'D TOtTl He said: Hand upon the throne of the Lord. The Lord will be at war with Amalek throughout the ages.

Tg.Neof.:36rraip VKhs *» pm •"•p'K "OTO rnnn p nps] nirnc TOW •no- sin izrp p ^INP -irr Kin p-m woo p op-ob ~rnin robo (ntw) •pirer pm TTTBHD nm pa'aD DIJ p^a ^iQp'i p^au ira DD «mp pi m1? p'aain KTDTT n- tmzro1? nno-oa IQK 'm nno«i -DTTQ pnrr And he said: An oath has gone out from beneath the throne of the Glory of the Lord of all the world: the first king who is to arise from the tribe of Benjamin shall be Saul the son of Kish. He shall wage war on the house of Amalek and shall kill kings with rulers and Mordecai and Esther shall 33. Probably an unparalleled tradition. 34. J.R. Baskin, Pharaoh's Counsellors. Job, Jethro, and Balaam in Rabbinic and Patristic Tradition (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), pp. 7-43. 35. See my book, The Embroidered Targum. 36. A similar tradition is found in Frg. Tg, in the marginal notes of Tg. Neof. and in various Targum Toseftot. See M.L. Klein, Genizah Manuscripts of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, I (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1986), pp. 253-55. Tg. Neof. to this verse reads nKQ and I follow Diez Macho in reading nD^Q.

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Targumic and Cognate Studies blot out what remains of them. And the Lord decreed in his word to blot out the memory of Amalek for all generations.

Tg. PS.-J.: rrr n-ra-aa «im m-p- rroTDa'm mma n-'p mis IQKI tmm pn Kofan trna tm Ttrf? jinn' -s-en p^au rraia N2"ip -ranrcafrjrrtrrm Nrroai And he said: Surely the word of the Lord swore in his seat of glory that He is his word will fight the house of Amalek and will wipe them out from three generations, from the generation of this world and from the generation of the Messiah and from the generation of the world to come.37

Here Pseudo-Jonathan clearly deviates from the common tradition of the other targumim which speak about Saul as well as Mordecai and Esther. He commands the destruction of Amalek by God only and does not rely upon mortal salvation. In this regard he follows Targum Onqelos in principle, which translates K^TH Dip ]Q Kl «TQK nimen "1DK1 P^QI? rrmn 'n mp taip mm Tnin mp' 'DTD ^i? rrnrDen Kft'?:) mo ]inm^^^: 'He said: with an oath this statement is said before the Fear who dwells on the seat of glory, that there will be a battle before the Lord against the house of Amalek, to destroy them throughout all generations'. Do we have here an inter-targumicdisagreement38 about revenge on the house of Amalek and who was commissioned to carry it out? The language of Pseudo-Jonathan, 'He in his word will fight the house of Amalek and will wipe them out', sounds as if it was meant to obviate the possibility of revenge by another, a mortal being. It seems that the choice made by the author of Pseudo-Jonathan to use this targumic method testifies to his wish to minimize—at least in this instance of the eternal enemy—the status of human heroism and to put in its place divine salvation, as if the meturgeman wished to say to the different generations that the annihilation of Amalek should be left to God himself. And it seems that because of this he did not follow the targumic method of introducing Esther, Mordecai, and Saul. This corresponds well with Pseudo-Jonathan's treatment of King Saul in another, yet similar, context: 37. On the eschatological significance of this tradition, cf. McNamara, Targum and Testament, p. 133. 38. Cf. J. Elbaum, 'R. Eleazar Hamodai and R. Joshua on the Amalek Pericope', in I. Ben-Ami and J. Dan (eds.), Studies in Aggadah and Jewish Folklore presented to Dov Noy on his sixtieth Birthday (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1983), pp. 99-116 (Hebrew).

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Num. 24.7: VTChfc WBm a pro Dip' p^ai; m"n ta"p rrn pn-^a ~ft>cn n^op pino ]-QQ^3 iphBr n^niD^Q rrro 'TCMIT ^» oim j^m IIHD^Q :DN ^u ^rnrn Their king shall rise up from among them and their redeemer shall be from them and with them, and the seed of Jacob's sons will rule over great nations. The first that will reign over them will fight the house of Amalek and will rise over Agag their king, but he will have pity on him and because of that his kingdom will be taken from him.

Targum Neofiti (and Fragment Targum) speak of an ingathering of exiles and of the messiah who will be stronger than Saul, who took pity on Agag king of the Amalekites. At the beginning of the verse PseudoJonathan also speaks about the messiah, and at the end of the verse he comments on 'The first that will reign over them' (referring, of course, to Saul, but not mentioning him by name) while telling about his sin and the loss of his kingdom. Targum Neofiti therefore, understands the words irTD^Q K2?3m ('his [their] kingdom shall be exalted') as praise for the messiah while Pseudo-Jonathan interprets them as punishment for Saul. This means that the figure of Saul in this verse—according to Pseudo-Jonathan—is very negative in comparison to that presented in Neofiti and he is not even explicitly mentioned by name. Is there room to claim that the author of Pseudo-Jonathan did not perceive Saul as a figure worthy of mention and therefore ignored him in the targum of Exod. 17.16 and, on the other hand, chose to talk about his sins (without mentioning his name) in the targum of Numbers 24? This question at the present stage of research has yet to be studied, although an affirmative answer seems most probable. 39. Cf. Frg. Tg. and G. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2ndedn, 1973), pp. 159-61. 40. The text should probably be DQVYn.

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IV It is impossible to treat our subject without also dealing with Ps.-J. Deut. 33.11, a verse that has received much treatment in targumic research.41 Deut.33.11:]TQ1p- ]Q VNJDD1 TOp D'PQ fTO rain TT ^1D1 frn 'n TT3 Bless, O Lord, his substance and favour his undertakings, smite the loins of his foes and let his enemies rise no more.

Tg. Ps.-J.: TT p-pi totBDD p 10020 pm T? n-ai TOD*: 'n -pa rrwo 3Kn&n icnn Tan ,ffuna *?apn tfaro lonea aipoi NTO irr^i

"an Km KTO pm "iwo1? 'n' t^i .rrtaip1? p'-pi top-to "3] nprnsi npa^

Bless, O Lord, the possessions of the house of Levi, who gives the tenth of the tithe. Receive with favour the offering from the hands of Elijah the priest, who is offering on Mount Carmel. Break the loins of Ahab, his adversary and the neck of the false prophets who stand against him. Let not the adversaries of Yohanan the High Priest have a foot to stand on.

It was Geiger who proposed viewing the words 'Yohanan the High Priest' as a reference to the Hasmonean king, John Hyrcanus (who reigned in the years 135-104 BCE), seeing it as one of the earliest remnants of targumic literature. According to this, a harsh curse is placed on the king's enemies, although they are not explicitly identified,42 and this curse was preserved apparently in Pseudo-Jonathan a long time after the Hasmonean dynasty had waned. I am not inclined to accept this interpretation of the targum, since Pseudo-Jonathan does not usually make explicit mention of figures who are not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and this supposed exception to the rule is impossible to ignore. When the author of a targum wishes to discuss a post-pentateuchal figure or condition, he does so through a biblical figure, at times even by hinting that this figure is a pretext for another, current matter.43 We should also remember that two more 41. For a systematic and comprehensive summary of this issue see Syren, The Blessings in the Tar gums, pp. 165-78. The following translation of Pseudo-Jonathan is his. 42. The Samaritans? Members of the Dead Sea sect? Cf. Syren, The Blessings in the Targums, p. 175; J.M. Baumgarten, 'Qumran and the Halakha in the Aramaic Targumim', in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Bible Studies (Jerusalem: The World Union of Jewish Studies, 1988), p. 49. 43. Very famous is Pseudo-Jonathan's treatment of Islam and Mohammed through its translation of various verses concerning Ishmael. See Shinan, The

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biblical figures are also mentioned in the verse itself, Ahab and Elijah (cf. the story in 2 Kgs 18); the addition of a third post-pentateuchal figure does not seem probable.44 I have already suggested elsewhere45 that what we have here is nothing but an orthographical error in the reading of 'Yohanan' for 'Aaron' (the graphic similarity between the two words—priK and ]]nv—in cursive Hebrew-Aramaic writing is most apparent). Aaron, or any priest, is indeed called tO~l N3rD many times in Pseudo-Jonathan.46 It appears that the combination *7n:i ]i~D pnv in the prayer recited on Hannukah since the end of the rabbinic period47 is what led a copyist to read 'Aaron' as 'Yohanan'. And, generally, if the reference is indeed to the Hasmonean king, then it is hard to understand why they would continue to curse the enemies of a king who had lost his notoriety a long time before. This was not the case with Aaron, who is a perpetual symbol of the priestly house. Moreover, the attitude toward the Hasmonean dynasty in the traditional Jewish literature is generally negative48 and thus there is difficulty in assuming that they would continue to curse the Hasmonean enemies in the Jewish liturgical context to which some Pharisaic sages belonged. The reference 'Yohanan' in Ps.-J. Deut. 33.11 therefore appears to me to be a textual mistake and, in all honesty, should be removed from the above list. V

We set out to examine the post-pentateuchal figures mentioned in Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and we found ourselves learning not only about the methods by which these figures were incorporated into the pentateuchal targumim, but also about another difference between the two major targumic texts. Of course, the study of the Aramaic targumim will, over time, reveal additional distinctive Embroidered Targum, pp. 156-64. Cf. above, the discussion of Gen. 49.17-18. 44. On Elijah as a priest from the house of Levy see Syren, The Blessings in the Tar gums, pp. 171-73. Cf. also Tg. Ps.-J. Exod. 6.18, and A. Zeron, 'The Martyrdom of Phineas-Elijah', JBL 98 (1979), pp. 99-100. 45. The Embroidered Targum, p. 195. 46. See, for example, Lev. 4.3; Num. 25.13; and Deut. 30.4. 47. Sof. 20.6 (ed. Higger, 346). 48. But cf. G. Alon, Studies in Jewish History in the Times of the Second Temple, the Mishna and the Talmud, I (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1967), pp. 15-25 (Hebrew).

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features of Pseudo-Jonathan and Neofiti and this will allow us to understand them as unique and special entities which, when combined, create the rich world of the Aramaic Targum. The study of this exciting world has gained momentum and growth in our generation; the contribution of Martin McNamara to this study—especially in regard to the relationship of the targumim to early Christian literature—is mentioned here with much gratitude and appreciation.

Part II ARAMAIC AND SYRIAC STUDIES

THE CURSES IN OLD ARAMAIC INSCRIPTIONS Kevin J. Cathcart

Inspired by D.R. Millers's investigation of 'the relation between the curses attached to treaties and the prophetic literature',11 have suggested further possible parallels to ancient Near Eastern curses, including treatycurses, in the biblical book of Nahum.2 The 'parallels' in the prophetic books of the Old Testament are often in the form of doom oracles and threats. Killers quite rightly points out that the Aramaic inscriptions of Sefire provide many interesting and close parallels to Old Testament literature.3 As I observed in my earlier studies, this is particularly interesting in the case of Nahum, because the city and king combination is an object of curse in both Sefire and Nahum.4 Killers also stresses the greater importance of those treaties which come from the ninth to the seventh centuries BCE.5 Since the publication of Killers's study, another important Old Aramaic inscription has been discovered, namely the Assyrian-Aramaic

1. Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets (BibOr, 16; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1964), p. 2. Killers refers to the earlier study by F.C. Fensham, 'Common Trends in Curses of the Near Eastern Treaties, and KudurmInscriptions Compared with Maledictions of Amos and Isaiah', ZAW 75 (1963), pp. 155-75. 2. K.J. Cathcart, Treaty-Curses and the Book of Nahum', CBQ 35 (1973), pp. 179-87; Nahum in the Light of Northwest Semitic (BibOr, 26; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1973), pp. 67, 131, 138, 140, 149, 150. In many instances, 'treatycurse' is probably an unfortunate term. In any case, I have not confined myself to any particular kind of curse. S. Gevirtz, 'West-Semitic Curses and the Problem of the Origins of Hebrew Law', VT 11 (1961), pp. 137-58, concentrates on 'inscriptional' curses or curses protecting the inscription. 3. Treaty-Curses, p. 77. 4. Treaty-Curses and the Book of Nahum', p. 179. 5. Treaty-Curses, p. 77.

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bilingual from Tell Fakhariyah.6 This late ninth-century inscription has a number of interesting curses which have parallels in other ancient Near Eastern texts and in the Old Testament.7 It might be useful therefore to examine further the curses in the Tell Fakhariyah inscription and in other Old Aramaic inscriptions, conveniently gathering together similar curses from other Semitic texts and the Old Testament for comparison. Of course many of the curses in the Tell Fakhariyah and Sefire inscriptions have been discussed already, to a greater or lesser extent, in earlier publications, but there is no convenient study of them in one place. Tell Fakhariyah 11-12 wzy yld Smy mnh wySym Smh hdd gbr Ihwy qblh And whoever removes my name from it and places his own name, may Hadad the Warrior be his adversary.

It seems that the Tell Fakhariyah inscription was 'composed and inscribed on the occasion of the renewal of the statue of Had-Yitci, Governor of Gozan, and its rededication to the Hadad temple of Sikanu'.8 The lines cited above contain a threat to anyone who might erase the name of Had-Yitci. The verb yld, 'removes' is from a root Iwd or /yd,9 and occurs elsewhere in the inscription (line 9, Imld; line 16, yld). It appears in a similar context in the Sefire inscriptions: I.C.I8; II.C.2, 6, 9.10 In these inscriptions, specific curses are invoked against 6. The editio princeps is A. Abou-Assaf, P. Bordreuil and A.R. Millard, La statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-arameenne (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les civilisations, 1982). Numerous articles on the inscription have been published and many are conveniently listed in W.E. Aufrecht and G.J. Hamilton, 'The Tell Fakhariyah Bilingual Inscription: A Bibliography', Newsletter for Targumic & Cognate Studies (Sup 4; 1988). 7. Abou-Assaf et al., La statue de Tell Fekherye, pp. 75-79, have already commented on them. Cf. J.C. Greenfield and A. Schaffer, 'Notes on the Curse Formulae of the Tell Fekherye Inscription', RB 92 (1985), pp. 47-59.1 have not yet seen the article by F.M. Fales, 'Massimo sforzo, minima resa: maledizioni divine da Tell Fekheriye all' Antico Testamento', Annali di Ca'Foscari 21 (1982), pp. 1-12. 8. S.A. Kaufman, 'Reflections on the Assyrian-Aramaic Bilingual from Tell Fakhariyeh', Maarav 3 (1982), p. 158. 9. Cf. D.M. Gropp and T.J. Lewis, 'Notes on Some Problems in the Aramaic Text of the Hadd-Yithci Bilingual', BASOR 259 (1985), pp. 49-50. 10. J.A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire (BibOr, 19; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1967).

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those who order the inscriptions (spry*) or its words (mlwK) to be effaced or removed. In the tenth-century Phoenician Ahiram sarcophagus inscription, the removal of an inscription is actually invoked as a curse against leaders who uncover the coffin: why ymh sprh, 'and as for him, may his inscription be effaced!'11 In the Phoenician Kilamuwa I inscription (line 15), the verb sht is used of the smashing of an inscription, and in the Karatepe inscription (line 15), mhy is used with reference to the removal of a name, and $t for placing a name (lines 1618). Note Sefire II.C.4-5,3bd for 'destruction' of inscriptions. Another verb, yhgc, 'effaces', is used in the Aramaic Hamath-Zakir inscription, lines B.I5-18: [wkl] mn yhgc >yt 3[sr ydy] zkr mlk hm[t wl]c$ mn nsb3 znh, 'Now, whoever effaces the story [of the achievements] of Zakir, king of Hamath and Lucath, from this stele...'12 Hdd gbr, 'Hadad the Warrior', compares with yl gbr in Isa. 9.5; 10.21; Jer. 32.18. Cf. also Deut. 10.17; Ps. 24.8; Zeph. 3.17. Tell Fakhariyah 16-18 mn yld Smy mn nv'ny3 zy bt hdd mr'y mr>y hdd Ihmh wmwh 3l ylqh mn ydh wsl mr'ty Ihmh wmwh 3l tlqh mn ydh Whoever removes my name from the vessels of the temple of Hadad my lord, may Hadad my lord not accept his food and water from his hand; may Sala my lady not accept his food and water from his hand.

With Greenfield and Schaffer, I read wsl for swl, which seems to be a scribe's error.13 This emendation is followed by Gropp and Lewis: 'The syntax (Old Aramaic, not Akkadian) cries out for the conjunction'.14 Kaufman compares the curse here with Lev. 26.31, wP yryhbryh nyhhkm, 'and I will not savour your pleasing odours'.15 Perhaps more interesting is Amos 5.21-22: 'I hate, I reject your feasts and I will not 11. J.C.L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions. III. Phoenician Inscriptions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). Cf. also, Gevirtz, 'West-Semitic Curses', pp. 140-58. 12. J.C.L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions. II. Aramaic Inscriptions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 10-11, 16. 13. J.C. Greenfield and A. Schaffer, 'Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Bilingual Statue from Tell Fekherye', Iraq 45 (1983), p. 115. Cf. also, E. Puech, Review of Abou-Assaf et al, La statue de Tell Fekherye, RE 90 (1983), p. 596. 14. 'Notes on Some Problems', p. 52. 15. 'Reflections', p. 168.

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take delight (I3 3ryh) in your assemblies. Even if you offer me burnt offerings and your gift offerings, I will not accept them (I3 3rsh); and I will not look upon (I3 3byt) your offerings of fatted cattle.' Hebrew rsh has a cognate in Aramaic rqy, which occurs with the same meaning in Hadad (Zenjirli) 22, ...zbhh \v3lyrqy bh, '...his sacrifice, and may he not look favourably upon it'.16 Tell Fakhariyah 18-19 wl zr* w*l yhsd w'lp Fryn Izr^ wprys Phz mnh And may he sow but not harvest; may he sow one thousand measures, but take only a parts from it.

As several scholars have observed, the most striking parallel is in Mic. 6.15,3th tzr* wl3 tqswr, 'you will sow but not reap'.17 But note also Isa. 5.10, ky csrt smdy krm ycsw bt 3ht wzr* hmr yfsh 3yph,'For ten acres off vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah'; and Hag. 1.6, zr'tm hrbh whb3 mct, 'you have sown much, and harvested little'. See also the discussion of Sefire I.A.27-29 below. Greenfield and Schaffer have pointed out that Pryn = Heb. $ecartm, 'measures' (Gen. 26.12) and not secorim, 'barley'.18 Tell Fakhariyah 20-21 3

3

3

wm h s wn Ihynqn mr w^l yrwy wnfh swr Ihynqn cgl w3l yrwy wm'h nSwn Ihynqn clym w*l yrwy And may one hundred ewes suckle a lamb, but let it not be satisfied; and may one hundred cows give suck to a calf, but let it not be satisified; and may one hundred women suckle a child, but let him not be satisfied.

Sefire I.A.21-24 [ ] JPf w'l thry w$bf [mhyjnqn ym$h[n Sdyhn wjyhynqn clym w'l ySbc wSbe ssyh yhynqn cl w3l y$[bcw$bc] Swrh yhynqn fgl w'l ySbf wSbc S3n yhynqn 3mr w[3l yS]bc 16. Gibson, Textbook.. .Aramaic Inscriptions, pp. 68-69. 17. J.W. Wesselius, Review of Abou-Assaf et al., La statue de Tell Fekherye, BO 40 (1983), col. 182; Greenfield and Schaffer, 'Notes on the Curse Formulae', pp. 53-54; V. Sasson, 'The Aramaic Text of the Tell Fakhariyah Assyro-Aramaic Bilingual Inscription', Z4W97 (1985), p. 100. 18. 'Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Bilingual Statue', pp. I l l , 115; 'Notes on the Curse Formulae', p. 53.

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Targumic and Cognate Studies [] a ewe, may she not conceive; and should seven [nurjses anoint their breasts and] nurse a young boy, may he not have his fill; and should seven mares suckle a colt, may it not be satis[fied; and should seven] cows give suck to a calf, may it not have its fill; and should seven ewes suckle a lamb, [may it not be satisjfied.

The editors of the Tell Fakhariyah inscription noticed immediately the very similar series of curses in the Sefire inscriptions.19 They pointed out also the interesting text in the Annals of Ashurbanipal: 'Even when the young camels, donkey foals, calves and lambs sucked seven times at the mothers who nursed them, yet they could not satiate their stomachs with milk'.20 There has been much discussion about sywn, 'ewes', in the Tell Fakhariyah text. The word has the samek spelling for t and the cognates are Ugaritic tat, pi. tut, and Egyptian Aramaic ft3.21 In the Sefir inscriptions the word appears as Ft (I.A.21) and pi. S'n (I.A.23; II.A.2). It may also appear in Panammu 6, 9 as Pt. Fitzmyer, following DupontSommer, relates these words to Hebrew seh, but this may not be right.22 Tell Fakhariyah 22 wm'h n$wn I3pn btnwr Ihm w3l ymPnh

And let one hundred women bake bread in an oven, but not fill it.

There is a striking parallel to this curse in Lev. 26.26, bSbry Ikm mth Ihm w'pw fsr nfym Ihmkm btnwr 3hd whfybw Ihmkm bmSql w*kltm wP tsbcw, 'When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven and dole out your bread by weight; though you eat, you shall not be satisfied'.23

19. Abou-Assaf et al, La statue de Tell Fekherye, p. 77 (though note that the Aramaic text of the last curse is missing). 20. Streck, Assurbanipal 76.ix.65. Cf. ANET (3rd edn), p. 300. The text is cited also by Greenfield and Schaffer, 'Notes on the Curse Formulae', p. 55; Gropp and Lewis, 'Notes on Some Problems', p. 58. It had already been noted by Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, p. 41. 21. The evidence (with previous bibliography) is laid out in Gropp and Lewis, 'Notes on Some Problems', p. 53. 22. The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, p. 41.

23. Cf. Abou-Assaf et al., La statue de Tell Fekherye, p. 78 (though beware of the transliteration); Kaufman, 'Reflections', p. 170.

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n$wn is an unusual plural form, for the normal form is nSyn. Compare s'wn in line 20. Kaufman (apud Rosenthal) notes Arabic niswan.24 Wesselius, however, prefers to regard it as an ending -fin (versus - In).25 Tell Fakhariyah 22 wmn qlqlf llqtw ^nSwh &rn Pklw And may his people scavenge barley grains to eat from the rubbish dumps.

qlqlf (probably the plural qilqilate) and its equivalent tupkinnate in the Akkadian text have been discussed extensively by Greenfield and Schaffer.26 They point out that the usual forms in Aramaic are qiqla (absolute form) and qiqilta (determined form). But a most interesting form is kiqillutu, apparently an Aramaic loan-word in Neo-Assyrian.27 In a footnote to their discussion of qlqlf,Greenfield and Schaffer make the following comment: 'The relationship of qlqlf/qlqla a and Biblical Hebrew qiqdlon "shame, infamy" is worth further consideration'.28 Now many years ago, I discussed in some detail the meaning of ki qalldta in Nah. 1.14.29 The last colon of that verse reads 3atfm qibrekd ki qalldta, which the NRSV renders, 'I will make your grave, for you are worthless', and the JPSV, 'I will make your grave accord with your worthlessness'. In my earlier study I followed some critics in repointing MT >dsim to ^aSSim (hiph. imperf. of $mm), 'I will devastate'. I translated ki qalldta literally: 'because you are worthless'. G.R. Driver, on the other hand, proposed long ago the existence of a noun qlyt, which he described as an 'abstract with semi-concrete meaning'.30 He rendered the whole line as follows: 'I will make thy grave as (a thing of) shame'. Other commentators have suggested a reading qdlon, 'dishonour, shameful thing', omitting ki as due to dittography,31 or qiqdlon with 24. 'Reflections', p. 169. 25. Review of Assaf et al, La statue de Tell Fekherye, col. 182. 26. J.C. Greenfield and A. Schaffer, 'Qlqlf, Tubkinnu, Refuse Tips and Treasure Trove', Anatolian Studies 33 (1983), pp. 123-29. 27. 'Qlqlf, Tubkinnu', pp. 124-25; 'Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Bilingual Statue', p. 116. 28. 'Qlqlt3, Tubkinnu', p. 124, n. 7. Biblical Hebrew qiqalon is found only in Hab. 2.16. 29. Nahum, p. 67. 30. 'Linguistic and Textual Problems. Minor Prophets. IF, JTS 39 (1938), p. 270. 31. J.M.P. Smith, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books ofMicah,

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similar meaning.32 But the most attractive reading is that found in the apparatus of BHS: qiqalot, 'dung-heap', a proposal going back to G. Bickell33 at the end of the last century, and adopted by H. Gunkel.34 Thus in Nah. 1.14 it seems better to read >asim qibreka qiqalot, 'I will make your grave a refuse dump'.35 In the treaty of Ashurnerari V with Mati'ilu of Arpad, rev. IV. 16, we find the following curse: ina tubkinni lu mayalSunu, 'may their sleeping place be in a dung-heap' (so S. Parpola36) or 'may their sleeping place be on a refuse dump' (Greenfield and Schaffer37). Of course, it would be pressing the evidence too far to propose a reading kiqallot on the basis of the Aramaic loan kiqillutu in Neo-Assyrian, mentioned above. The mention of Sinfka, 'your name', and qibreka, 'your grave', in Nah. 1.14 supports the restoration of Sefire II.A.4-5, proposed by Dupont-Sommer and followed by Fitzmyer: [...w^mh y]tn$y wyhwh qb[rh...], '[...and may his name be for]gotten, and may [his gravje be...'38 The meaning of Aramaic Iqt, 'scavenge', in this Tell Fakhariyah curse is similar to that of Hebrew Iqt in Judg. 1.17, where it is used of picking up scraps of fallen food.

Zephaniah, and Nahum (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912), p. 328, following Wellhausen and others. 32. Cf. BHS; K. Elliger, Das Buch der zwolf kleinen Propheten (ATD, 25; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 6th edn, 1967), II, p. 8; A. van Hoonacker, Les douze petits prophetes (Paris: Gabalda, 1908), p. 430. 33. Beitrage zur semitische Metrik I. Das alphabetische Lied in Nahum 1,2-2,3 (Sitzungsberichte der phil.-hist. Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften 5; Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1894). 34. H. Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1895), p. 103. 35. K.J. Cathcart, 'Nahum, Book of, in D.N. Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), IV, p. 998. 36. Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (State Archives of Assyria, 2; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988), p. 11. 37. 'Notes on the Akkadian-Aramaic Bilingual', p. 116. 38. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, pp. 80-81, 85-86; Cathcart, Treaty-Curses', pp. 180-81.

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Tell Fakhariyah 23 wmwtn Sbt zy nyrgl 3l ygtzr mn mth And may pestilence, plague of Nergal, not be cut off from his land.

The Aramaic text does not correspond to the Akkadian (lines 37-38): di}u $ibtu di

pte ina mdtiSu Id ipparrasu, 'May malaria, plague and sleeplessness not be removed from his land'. Aramaic mwtn is not a translation of di>u, for Akkadian mutanu is usually associated with dPu, Sibtu and diliptu in curses.39 Nergal is the god of pestilence. In Esarhaddon's succession treaty, lines 455-56, Nergal sends pestilence (mutanu) and in Esarhaddon's accession treaty, rev. 26-27', Nergal destroys through plague and pestilence (ina $ibti u mutant).40 Sefire I.A.26-27 wysk cl 3rpd [}bny b]rd and may he (Hadad) shower upon Arpad hail [stones].

In Josh. 10.11 it is reported that the Amorites were routed when 'the Lord hurled huge stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died because of the hailstones ( (frbny hbrd) than the Israelites killed with the sword' (cf. Isa. 30.30). It is on the basis of these texts that the words [>bny b]rd have been restored by Dupont-Sommer, followed by Fitzmyer41 and Gibson.42 Sefire I.A.27 wSbf Snn y>kl >rbh wSbf Snn fkl twlch For seven years may the locust devour (Arpad) and for seven years may the worm eat.

Very similar curses are found in Esarhaddon's succession treaty: line 443, 'May the locust who diminishes the land devour your harvest'; lines 599-600, 'May they (the gods) cause locusts...lice, caterpillars and other field pests to devour your towns, your land and your district'.43 In 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

Cf. Gropp and Lewis, 'Notes on Some Problems', p. 54. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, pp. 23, 48. The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, pp. 14-15, 46. Textbook.. .Aramaic Inscriptions, pp. 30-31, 39. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, pp. 46, 55.

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Exod. 10.4-5 and Ps. 105.32-34, there is the same sequence of hail and locusts,44 and in the curses of Deut. 28.38-39 there is a sequence of locust and worm. Sefire Aramaic twlch and Biblical Hebrew twlft(the form found in Deut. 28.39 and Jon. 4.7) /twlfhhave a cognate in Akkadian tiiltu, which occurs in Esarhaddon's succession treaty: line 570, ki...tultu takuluni, 'as a worm eats'.45 Sefire IA.29 w>l yt$mc ql knr b3rpd wbcmh

May the sound of the lyre not be heard in Arpad and among its people.46

This curse is classified by Killers as an example of the 'Removal of Joyful Sounds' type.47 There is a striking parallel in Ezek. 26.13, wqwl knwryk P ySmf cwd, 'The sound of your lyres will not be heard again'. I have pointed out a linguistically similar text in Nah. 2.14, wP y$mf cwd qwl mPkyk (MT mPkkh), 'And the voice of your messengers will not be heard again'.48 The NEB has 'and the sound of your feeding shall no more be heard'. It follows the suggestion of G.R. Driver to read ma^kdlek, 'your feeding'.49 Quite rightly, the REB has 'your envoys'. Sefire I.A.30-33 wySlhn 3lhn mn kl mh 3kl b3rpd wbcmh [fklp]m hwh wpm cqrb wpm dbhh wpm nmrh wss wqmlw3[...yhww]clhqq btn [ySJtht lySmn3hwhwthwy 3rpd tl l[rbq sy wjsby \v$cl w3rnb w$rn wsdh \v...v/qhw3l t3mr qr[yt3 h3...] May the gods send every sort of devourer against Arpad and its people! [May the mo]uth of a snake [eat], the mouth of a scorpion, the mouth of a bear, the mouth of a panther! And may a moth and a louse and a [.. .become] to it a serpent's throat! May its vegetation be destroyed unto desolation! And may Arpad become a mound to [house the desert animal]; the gazelle and the fox and the hare and the wild cat and the owl and the [ ] and the magpie! May [this] ci[ty] not be mentioned (again)...50 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

Cf. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, p. 46. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, p. 53. Contra Fitzmyer, b3rpd and wbfmh are linked together, as in line 30. Treaty-Curses, pp. 57-58. Cf. Fensham, 'Common Trends', pp. 171-72. Cathcart, Nahum, p. 110; Treaty-Curses', p. 183. 'Linguistic and Textual Problems', p. 271. Parts of these lines are difficult, but I have followed Fitzmyer whose text and

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The curse of devouring animals is dealt with extensively by Hillers.51 For general biblical parallels, cf. Lev. 26.22; Deut. 32.24. In his comment on hwh, 'snake', Fitzmyer notes the pertinent text in Jer. 8.17.521 have recently discussed the serpent as an 'agent of the Lord' in Amos 9.14_53

There are particularly interesting biblical parallels which mention the various animals referred to in the Sefire text. Note especially Isa. 51.8; Jer. 5.6; Hos. 5.12; 13.7-8. The sequence >ryh...nmr, 'lion...panther', in Jer. 5.6 matches that in the fragmentary Sefire II.A.9, [wy3kl] pm 3ryh wpm [...]. wpm nmrfh]..., '[...and may] the mouth of a lion [eat] and the mouth of [a...] and the mouth of a panther'.54 The curse of a place becoming a desolation and a dwelling place for animals is examined at length by Hillers.55 He lists the following biblical texts: Mic. 3.12 (cf. Jer. 26.18) (Jerusalem); Isa. 13.19-22 (Babylon); 34.11-17 (Edom-Bozrah); Jer. 50.39-40 (Babylon); Zeph. 2.13-15 (Assyria-Nineveh). Sefire I.A. 35-36 >yk zy tqd Pwf z3 b>$ kn tqd 3rpd w[bnth r]bt Just as this wax is burned by fire, so may Arpad be burned and [her gr]eat [daughter-cities]!

Fitzmyer56 points out the partial parallel in Ps. 68.3, khms dwng mpny yS y3bdw r$cym mpny 3lhym, 'as wax melts before the fire, so may the wicked perish before God'. For the burning of an 'image of wax' (salmu i$kuri), see Esarhaddon's succession treaty, line 60S.57 Biblical parallels to the burning of cities in a 'curse' context include Hos. 8.14; Amos 1.4, 7 etc.; Nah. 3.13, 15.

translation are given here. Cf. Gibson, Textbook...Aramaic Inscriptions, pp. 40-41, for criticism of some of Fitzmyer's proposals. 51. Treaty-Curses, pp. 54-56. 52. The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, p. 48. 53. K.J. Cathcart, 'rotf, 'poison', in Amos ix, I', VT44 (1994), pp. 393-96. 54. Cf. Hillers, Treaty-Curses, p. 55. 55. Treaty-Curses, pp. 44-54. 56. The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, p. 53. 57. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, p. 55.

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Sefire I.A.36 wzr* bhn hdd mlh wShlyn w>l y3mr

May Hadad sow in them salt and cress, and may it not be mentioned again.

The sowing or spreading of salt as a curse has been examined by Fensham, 58 and is discussed further by Fitzmyer.59 They note the following biblical references: Deut. 29.22; Judg. 9.45; Jer. 17.6; Zeph. 2.9; Job 39.6. The combination of salt and cress is found in a passage in the Annals of Ashurbanipal: 'I laid waste the districts of Elam, I scattered salt and cress over them'.60 In Zeph. 2.9, Moab and Ammon are to be 'possessed by wild vetchling (hrwl) and salt pits (mkrh mlh) and be a waste forever'.61 At Hos. 9.6, we read 'Precious is their silver; nettles shall possess them [i.e. Israel], thorns their tents'. Now the targum of this verse is rather interesting: 'In their houses of precious silver nettles shall lodge, wild vetchling in their castles'.62 In targumic manuscripts, this verse has the word htwlyn, 'cats', which is a rather strange translation of MT hwh, 'thorns, thorny shrubs'. Jastrow suggests emendation to hnvlyn, which he renders 'thorns',63 but 'wild vetchling' might be a better translation. Sefire I.A.38-39 vfyk zy tSbr q$t3 whsy* }ln kn ySbr >nrt whdd [qStmf}l] wqSt rbwh

Just as (this) bow and these arrows are broken, so may Inurta and Hadad break [the bow of MatT'el] and the bow of his nobles.

Compare Hos. 1.5, wSbrty >t q$t ysrt, 'I will break the bow of Israel'; Jer. 49.35, hnny $br 3t q$t fylm,'I am going to break the bow of Elam'. In Esarhaddon's treaty with Baal, king of Tyre, rev.iv.18, there is a

58. F.C. Fensham, 'Salt as Curse in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East', BA 25 (1962), pp. 48-50. 59. The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire,p. 53. 60. Streck, Assurbanipal, 56.vi.79. Cf. CAD (S), p. 64. 61. Hebrew hrwl is probably a cognate of Akkadian halluru, 'chick-peas'. 62. Cf. K.J. Cathcart and R.P. Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets (The Aramaic Bible, 14; Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989), p. 48. 63. M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (New York: Pardes, 1903), p. 512.

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curse which reads 'May Astarte break your bow in the thick of battle',64 and there is reference to bow and arrows being struck by God in Ezek. 39.3. Killers describes this type of curse as that of 'breaking weapons'.65 Sefire I.A.39-40 c

[w'yk zy] ygzr gP znh kn ygzr mf^l wygzrn rbwh [Just as] this calf is cut in two, so may Mali' el be cut in two, and may his nobles be cut in two!

The ritual cutting up of an animal in a treaty or covenant-making setting is well known from Gen. 15.9-18 and Jer. 34.18. Fitzmyer also draws attention to the dismemberment of a spring lamb in the treaty of Ashurnerari V with Mati'-ilu, king of Arpad, I,10-29.66 The significance of these rites is discussed by Dennis J. McCarthy.67 Sefire I.A.40-41 c

[w>yk zy frr z]n[yh] kn y rrn nSy m/°/ wnSy cqrh wn$y r[bwh [And just as a pros]ti[tute is stripped naked], so may the wives of Mati'el be stripped naked, and the wives of his offspring and the wives of [his] no[bles!]

This text has been restored by Hillers, who cites Jer. 13.26-27; Ezek. 16.37-38; 23.10, 29; Hos. 2.5, 12; Nah. 3.5 as parallels to a curse concerned with the punishment of a prostitute by stripping. Nah. 3.5 is a particularly good parallel: wglyty Swlyk cl pnyk whr>yty gwym mcrk wmmlkwt qlwnk, 'And I am going to lift up your skirts over your face, and I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame'.68 Gibson prefers to read znh for znyh and translates as follows: 'this thing [is stripped naked]'.69

64. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, p. 27. 65. Treaty-Curses, p. 60. 66. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, pp. 8-9. 67. Treaty and Covenant (AnBib, 21A; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978), pp. 91-95. 68. Cathcart, Nahum, pp. 117, 130-31; 'Treaty-Curses', pp. 183-84. 69. Textbook.. .Aramaic Inscriptions, pp. 33, 42.

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Sefire I.C.21-25 yhpkw 3lhn 3s[3 h]3 wbyth wkl zy [b]h wySmw thtyth [lc]lyth w3! yrtSfy l]h m

May the gods overturn th[at m]an and his house and all that (is) in it; and may they make its lower part its upper part! May he inherit no name!

This curse is invoked against anyone who would not observe the obligations set out in the inscription on the stele or would dare to efface its words or upset the treaty. At the end of the passage, the words 'May he inherit no name' are based on F. Rosenthal's reading yrtSfy l]h, a Gt form of yrL10 Fitzmyer has w3l yrt SrfSJhh 3$m, 'May his scio[n] inherit no name!'71 The verb hpk, 'overturn', is found in a curse in the Phoenician Ahiram inscription, line 2: thtpk ks3 mlkh, 'May his royal throne be overturned'. Fitzmyer points out that in Sefire I.C.19, hpk is used metaphorically of upsetting good relations, and in Deut. 23.6 the same verb is used of changing a curse into a blessing.72 Hadad (Zenjirli) 24 wSnh lmnf mnh blyl3

May he (Hadad) withhold sleep from him in the night.

Denial of sleep is found in a curse in Esarhaddon's succession treaty, lines 637-40: 'Just as the noise of (these) doves is persistent, so may you, your women, your sons and your daughters have no rest or sleep and may your bones never come together!73 'Sleeplessness' is mentioned in lines 418 and 487 of the same treaty. It is a pleasure to dedicate this survey of the curses in Old Aramaic Inscriptions, which I hope will give a fair impression of their importance, to Martin McNamara, a friend for many years.

70. 71. 72. 73.

ANET(3rdedn), p. 600. Cf. Kaufman, 'Reflections', p. 173. The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire, pp. 21, 77. The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire,p. 76. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, p. 57.

OUR TRANSLATED TOBIT* Edward M. Cook

The title above will, I hope, recall for many C.C. Torrey's Our Translated Gospels (1936).l Torrey believed that the gospels were translations of early Aramaic originals. But when he wrote, there were few if any examples of Aramaic texts that had been translated into Greek and so he had to rely on his own Aramaic back-translations for his conclusions—a procedure with obvious risks. His method presupposed that certain difficulties must have attended the transition from Aramaic to Greek, and that often these difficulties produced a garbled Greek text that only made sense when the original was reconstructed. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls gave New Testament scholars a fairly large corpus of original Hebrew and Aramaic texts from the first centuries BCE and CE by which one could test some of Torrey's hypotheses. Most notably, they gave Torrey a belated victory over his antagonist Edgar Goodspeed, who had claimed that 'in the days of Jesus the Jews of Palestine were not engaged in writing books'.2 Some of Torrey's other assumptions were proved wrong. He believed that scriptio continua, writing words without a space, was responsible for some translation errors in the Greek gospels.3 The Qumran texts show that scriptio continua was not customary in Hebrew or Aramaic at the turn of the era. More seriously, the scrolls suggest that Hebrew was at least as * This essay is offered with gratitude to Martin McNamara, who has done so much to place Aramaic studies on the agenda of New Testament scholarship. 1. C.C. Torrey, Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936). 2. E.J. Goodspeed, 'The Original Language of the Gospels', in T.S. Kepler (ed.), Contemporary Thinking about Jesus: An Anthology y (New York: AbingdonCokesbury, 1944), p. 59. 3. Torrey, Our Translated Gospels, pp. 2, 139, 162, etc.

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important as Aramaic as a literary language, perhaps more so. Although Torrey was perfectly justified in positing original Aramaic gospels in view of the evidence available to him, the new evidence requires us to consider the possibility of original Hebrew gospels as well. Some of Torrey's retrojections better fit a Hebrew original in any case. For example, he thought that Lk. 8.14 Ttope-oojievoi croiircviyovTCu (RSV: 'as they go on their way they are choked') concealed the Aramaic original "ppTin^! j^TN, 'they are gradually choked'.4 Although this modal use of ^R is known from Syriac and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of a later period, it is as yet unattested in Qumran Aramaic. The modal use of "[^n, however, would have been familiar from Biblical Hebrew and is attested in free composition at Qumran (e.g., 4Q306, fr. 1.13 [np"im HD'pin rrnnn).5 Torrey devoted most of his attention to finding mistranslations of an Aramaic original gospel. He believed that the Greek translators could err by choosing a wrong (though possible) equivalent of an Aramaic word, dividing sentences wrongly, taking a question for a declaration, incorrectly vocalizing the text, confusing Kin with Kin, and, rarely, relying on an already corrupted Aramaic text.6 R.M. Grant pointed out that this procedure depended on the translation being ungrammatical or, if grammatical, nonsensical; otherwise the mistranslation could not be detected. Furthermore he observed that Aramaists 'have a tendency to disagree as to what the original was'.7 For this reason many since Torrey have concentrated on identifying Semitic interference in New Testament Greek instead of hunting for mistranslations. That is where the Qumran text of Tobit comes in. The five witnesses to the Tobit text from Cave 4 (four Aramaic, one Hebrew), though fragmentary, allow us to check the accuracy of translation from Aramaic (or Hebrew) to Greek. The availability of the original (or close to it) helps to overcome one of the difficulties Grant noted. Comparing Aramaic Tobit to Greek Tobit may provide a useful case study in identifying both 4. Torrey, Our Translated Gospels, p. 27. 5. C.F.D. Moule also suggested that Lk. 8.14 is a Hebraism: An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1963), p. 209. 6. Torrey, Our Translated Gospels, pp. 3 (wrong equivalent), 5 (wrong division), 84 (question), 91 (vocalizing), 115 (confusion), 125 (corruption). 7. R.M. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament (Touchstone edition; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), p. 41.

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possible mistranslations and Semitic interference in Biblical Greek. Greek Tobit exists in three recensions. The short recension (I) is represented in Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, and many uncials. The long recension (II) is found in Codex Sinaiticus. The 'third recension', mediating between the first two, is found in two uncials and part of the Peshitta.8 Qumran Tobit in general (but not exclusively) agrees with the long recension. Qumran Tobit exists in four principal manuscripts: 4Q196-198 (Aramaic, herein A-C; 199 is too fragmentary to be used) and 4Q200 (Hebrew). Only a small portion of the total text is covered and the placement of some fragments is still uncertain. Part of 4Q196 has recently been published by J.A. Fitzmyer and by Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise. A complete transliteration has been published by Klaus Beyer.9 I assume for heuristic purposes that Aramaic Tobit as we have it from Cave 4 is essentially the same as the source text of the Greek versions. This assumption needs some defense, since Beyer claims that Aramaic Tobit was translated from Hebrew Tobit, and that Greek Tobit was translated directly from Hebrew Tobit.10 His argument rests on two foundations: the presence of Hebrew words in the Aramaic text and Greek mistranslations of an apparent Hebrew source text. As for the first point, Qumran Aramaic liberally borrowed Hebrew words and used them in free composition;11 furthermore, Hebrew Tobit contains Aramaic words, as Beyer notes (e.g., HDD, pn, -ss, nnt?, nmntfn). His second argument is no more convincing. Beyer suggests that the 8. R. Hanhart discusses the witnesses to Greek Tobit in Tobit (Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientarum Gottingensis editum VIII, 5; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), pp. 7-36. 9. J.A. Fitzmyer, 'Preliminary Publication of pap4QToba ar, Fragment 2', Bib 75 (1994), pp. 220-24; R. Eisenman and M. Wise, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (Shaftesbury: Element, 1992), pp. 97-99; K. Beyer, Die aramdischen Texte vom Toten Meer: Ergdnzungsband (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), pp. 134-47. 10. Ergdnzungsband, pp. 134-35. 11. See S. Fassberg, 'Hebraisms in the Aramaic Documents from Qumran', in T. Muraoka (ed.), Studies in Qumran Aramaic (Abr-Nahrain, Sup 3; Louvain: Peeters, 1992), pp. 48-69. Of the five Hebraisms Beyer identifies—^'^ 'idol' (14.6), -n-lK 'cursed' (13.4), ]'^nn 'psalms' (13.10), top 'call' (5.9), and nnDKJQ 'family' (1.22)—N~)p is a normal Aramaic word, while nriDtDQ is used in free composition in the Aramaic Testament ofLevi (Bodleian MS, B 16).

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translator misunderstood Hebrew 'P'QOI 'and (she) bore (you in the womb)' (4Q200, 4.4) as JTD01', producing the Greek ecopocicev, 'she saw'. But the Greek is not a good translation of ^DO1"; an aorist is a poor choice to translate an imperfect, and the root ^DD in the Hiphil does not mean 'to see'. Beyer has failed to understand the nuances of the root *730. The Greek text reads Kiv8\>voi)0r|Ti [II]). pi, of course, is a good Aramaic word; if the translator read *p~l in its place, it only means he 'saw' a Hebrew word where he expected an Aramaic one. However, 7iopei>ou.(xi is not a very apt translation for j"n. It is more likely that here we have a different source text: TIQ& "O^ if Hebrew, HFI TIN if Aramaic, producing rcopeuOrjti KOC! ccyaAAiocaou (II).12 In short, it is still not proven that Hebrew Tobit was the source text of the Greek.13 It should also be borne in mind that Aramaic Tobit has a history both before and after Cave 4, so that when the Greek offers a different text it may be using an earlier or later version of the Aramaic. The Greek texts also have histories, and may have inner-Greek changes that move the text away from its Aramaic source. Still, as noted before, Aramaic Tobit is, by and large, very close to the source text of the second recension (although the other two Greek recensions also preserve what can now 12. Another possibility is that Aramaic "^m "in, which is actually attested (B 13.13), was understood as "Wai "in, which the translator paraphrased as best he could. 13. Wise has also suggested that Hebrew Tobit was original, noting the 'tendency to use the infinitive absolute in place of finite verbal forms. Such usage is surprising if this text is translation Hebrew, not least because one rarely encounters the infinitive absolute at all in Qumran Hebrew' ('A Note on 4Q196 [papTob Ar3] and Tobit I 22', VT 43 [1993], p. 569 n.4). But if the liberal use of the infinitive absolute is otherwise absent in free Hebrew composition at Qumran, then its use in Tobit indicates that it is not freely composed Hebrew, but a translation—perhaps an effort to duplicate the nuance of the narrative participle in Aramaic.

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be recognized as original readings). Hence it can be used for the exploratory purposes of this initial inquiry. Only a few topics can be handled here, for reasons of space. A thorough treatment would deal with all of the grammatical phenomena of the Greek and Aramaic texts, including how the Greek deals with the Aramaic tenses, word order, and other syntactic features, as well as presenting thorough collations of all the relevant witnesses to the Greek text. The questions taken up here, however, may shed some light on Aramaic approaches to the gospels. 1. Translation of the Particle "H Greek Tobit shows few signs of misunderstanding the Aramaic particle H. It is used in Qumran Tobit as follows: 1.

2.

3.

4.

Genitive marker: mr] "1 «T2J, 'the wall of Nineveh' (A, 1.17), Gk. xeixovq Niveuri (I, II); ]S H "D1, 'a ram of the flock' (B, 7.9), Gk. Kpiov 7cpo(3dTcov (I), Kpiov eK 7cpo(3aTcov (II). Relative pronoun: [n]]HT H |in« n^ 1[3 vb] (A, 3.15), 'he has no other child to inherit him', Gk. o\)% -urcdpxei amcp eiepov TEKVOV ivoc KA/npovouriar| a\)iov (II); ^flD] n] D mrD ptf "1 (A, 7.3), 'from the children of Naphtali that are in captivity in Nineveh', Gk. EK TCOV vicov Neq>0aA,ei|j. r|U£iq (I om.), icbv aix|ia?icotio0£VTCov ev Nwe\)T) (II). Conjunction: [pn1? n~l]3p H3« '[!]..."inn (A, 1.19), 'he told...that I buried them', Gk. on eycb GaTixco a\)TO\)