TARGUM. – Aramaic paraphrase of the Old Testament. The term is a participle from the Aramaic root tîrghêm (or better râgham) “to interpret, translate” (cf. Ezra 4:7), from which the Italian “dragomanno” derives. After the Babylonian exile, the use of the Hebrew language was lost, and in the synagogues there arose the need to explain the biblical texts to the people, who now understood only Aramaic.
According to some, the first indication of such a practice may already be found in the time of Ezra: mêphôrêš (Neh. 8:8) would mean “to translate,” while others, with greater justification, understand it in the sense of “distinctly, in sections or passages.” At first the translation was oral and followed one or three verses. From the Palestinian Talmud (Megillah 4:1; ed. M. Schwab, VI, p. 245) it appears that it was forbidden to commit such a translation to writing in the vernacular. The first written recension therefore does not seem to date before the 1st century A.D.
According to the division of the Hebrew Bible, one speaks of T. or, better, in the plural, of Targumim of the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. There are as many as four Targumim 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 famous T. of Onkelos, generally attributed to the 1st or early 2nd century A.D. It is distinguished by its fidelity to the Hebrew text, which is essentially the Masoretic text; but it does not refrain from paraphrasing more difficult passages or from interpretations that emphasize the messianic character of certain texts. The name Onkelos is usually identified with the Greek ‘Αχαωα̑ς and the Latin Aquila. It is possible, therefore, that it owes its origin to rabbinic tradition, which liked to attribute the work to the translator of the Bible into Greek (cf. AQUILA). But this opinion is not very plausible. It is stated that Onkelos was a contemporary of Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder and that he composed his work following the teachings of Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua (cf. Megillah 3a; ed. L. Goldschmidt, III, p. 536). But the first mentioned lived in the 1st century A.D., while the other two were of the 2nd century. Therefore, the attribution has only the value of indicating as a characteristic of the version a greater fidelity, which also distinguishes Aquila’s work among the various Greek translations. The T. of Onkelos enjoyed great diffusion; it was even enriched with its own Masorah (cf.), in imitation of what had been done for the Bible.
The Palestinian T. is represented by a T. jerushalmi I, often falsely called T. Jonathan, which in its present form does not seem to date before the 7th century, by a T. jerushalmi II or “of the fragments” (T. fragmentorum) and by a T. jerushalmi III. Rather than distinct works, these are various recensions of the same translation, characterized by great freedom and not a few absurd and superstitious elements. For this reason its authority is much inferior to that of the T. of Onkelos.
For the Prophets, according to the division of the Hebrew canon, i.e., for Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, as well as for the strictly prophetic books according to Christians, there is the T. Jonathan. In it one notes almost the same fidelity as in the work of Onkelos, to which it is very close in language; but in the messianic prophecies an anti-Christian bias is evident. The translation dates from the 1st-2nd century A.D.; but it underwent various revisions later (in the 4th-5th century). As for the author, Jonathan ben Uzziel, nothing is known. According to rabbinic tradition he would have been a disciple of Hillel (cf.).
The third section of the Bible, i.e., the Hagiographa, received an Aramaic paraphrase only later (6th-9th century), whose value varies in the different books. For their adherence to the letter, the Targumim to Job, Psalms, and Proverbs stand out. In the latter one also notes dependence on the Syriac version Peshitto. The T. to the five scrolls or megilloth, i.e., Ruth, Canticle of Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, is most free. It is rather a midrash (cf.). The three books Daniel-Ezra-Nehemiah, which contain parts in Aramaic, never received 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 it is mostly a paraphrase. From the exegetical point of view, its importance concerns the history of exegesis, inasmuch as it sometimes reveals the thought of the rabbis of the time.