TARGUM. - Aramaic paraphrase of the Old Testament. The term is a participle from the Aramaic root tirghēm (or rather rāgham) "to interpret, to translate" (cf. Estd. 4, 7), from which the Italian "dragomanno" derives. After the Babylonian exile the use of the Hebrew language was lost, and in the synagogues the need arose to explain the texts of the biblical readings to the people, who by then understood only Aramaic.
According to some, the first indication of such a custom would already be found in the time of Ezra: mēghārāš (Noh. 8, 8) would mean "to translate," while others, with better foundation, understand it in the sense of "distinctly, in passages or by sections." At first the translation was oral, and took place after one or three verses. From the Palestinian Talmud (Mēghillāh, 4, 1; ed. M. Schwab, VI, p. 245) it appears that it was forbidden to set down in writing a translation into the new language. The first redaction, therefore, does not seem earlier than the 1st century A.D.
According to the division of the Hebrew Bible one speaks of T. or, better, in the plural, of Targāmin of the Pentateuch, of the Prophets and of the Hagiographs. There are as many as four Targāmin for the Pentateuch. One, the most authoritative, is of Babylonian origin, while the others come from Palestine, and are therefore called Jerusalemite or Palestinian.
The first is the celebrated T. 'Onkēlōs, generally ascribed to the 1st century or to the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. It is distinguished by its fidelity to the Hebrew text, which is substantially the Masoretic text; but it does not shrink from paraphrases in the more difficult passages or from interpretations that accentuate the messianic character of certain texts. The name 'Onkēlōs is usually identified with the Greek 'Axōkac and with the Latin Aquila. It is possible, therefore, that it is due to rabbinic tradition, which loved to attribute the work to the translator of the Bible into Greek (v. AQUILA). But such an opinion has little likelihood. It states that 'Onkēlōs was a contemporary of Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder and that he would have composed his work following the teachings of Rabbi 'Elī'ezer and of Rabbi Joshua (cf. Mēghillāh 3a; ed. L. Goldschmidt, III, p. 536). But the first mentioned lived in the 1st century A.D., while the other two are of the 2nd. Therefore the attribution has only the value of pointing out as a characteristic of the version a greater fidelity, which also distinguishes the work of Aquila among the various Greek translations. The T. 'Onkēlōs had a great diffusion; it was even enriched with a masora (v.) of its own, in imitation of what had been done for the Bible.
The Palestinian T. is represented by a T. jērāšalmī I, often falsely called T. Jōnāthān, which in its present form does not seem earlier than the 7th century, by a T. jērāšalmī II or "of the fragments" (T. fragmentorum) and by a T. jērāšalmī III. More than different works, these are various recensions of one and the same translation, characterized by its great freedom and by not a few absurd and superstitious elements. For this reason its authority is much inferior to that of the T. 'Onkēlōs.
For the Prophets, understood according to the division of the Hebrew canon, that is for Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, as well as for the strictly prophetic books according to Christians, there is the T. Jōnāthān. In it one notes almost the same fidelity as in the work of 'Onkēlōs, to which it comes very close in language; but in the messianic prophecies the anti-Christian preoccupation is evident. The translation goes back to the 1st-2nd century A.D.; but it underwent various revisions later (in the 4th-5th century). Nothing is known about the author, Jōnāthān ben 'Uzzī'ēl. According to rabbinic tradition he would have been a disciple of Hillēl (v.).
The third section of the Bible, that is the Hagiographs, received only later (6th-9th centuries) an Aramaic paraphrase, whose value varies in the different books. For their adherence to the letter the Targāmin to Job, Psalms and Proverbs are distinguished. In the latter one also notes the dependence on the Syriac version Pēšittā. The T. to the five "scrolls" or mēghillāh, that is Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, is extremely free. It is rather a midhrās (v.). The three books Daniel-Ezra-Nehemiah, which contain parts in Aramaic, never had a paraphrase in that language.
The study of the T. allows one to know the Aramaic language of the time, similar to that spoken by Jesus. Its contribution to textual criticism is rather modest, since these are for the most part paraphrases. From the exegetical side its importance concerns the history of exegesis, inasmuch as it sometimes manifests the thought of the rabbis of that time.
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Angelo Penna