Sunday, July 03, 2011

Targum Yonasan's "prophecy"

In parashat Balak, Bilaam has a prophecy which Targum Yonasan interprets. Bilaam says:

יז  אֶרְאֶנּוּ וְלֹא עַתָּה, אֲשׁוּרֶנּוּ וְלֹא קָרוֹב; דָּרַךְ כּוֹכָב מִיַּעֲקֹב, וְקָם שֵׁבֶט מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל, וּמָחַץ פַּאֲתֵי מוֹאָב, וְקַרְקַר כָּל-בְּנֵי-שֵׁת.17 I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh; there shall step forth a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite through the corners of Moab, and break down all the sons of Seth.
יח  וְהָיָה אֱדוֹם יְרֵשָׁה, וְהָיָה יְרֵשָׁה שֵׂעִיר--אֹיְבָיו; וְיִשְׂרָאֵל, עֹשֶׂה חָיִל.18 And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also, even his enemies, shall be a possession; while Israel doeth valiantly.
יט  וְיֵרְדְּ, מִיַּעֲקֹב; וְהֶאֱבִיד שָׂרִיד, מֵעִיר.19 And out of Jacob shall one have dominion, and shall destroy the remnant from the city.


And Targum Yonasan says:
I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but it is not near. When the mighty King of Jakob's house shall reign, and the Meshiha, the Power‑sceptre of Israel, be anointed, He will slay the princes of the Moabaee, and bring to nothing all the children of Sheth, the armies of Gog who will do battle against Israel and all their carcases shall fall before Him. And the Edomaee will be utterly driven out, even the sons of Gabela from before Israel their foes, and Israel will be strengthened with their riches and possess them. And a prince of the house of Jakob will arise and destroy and consume the remnant that have escaped from Constantina the guilty city, and will lay waste and ruin the rebellious city, even Kaiserin the strong city of the Gentiles.
Over at Mystical Paths, Reb Dov Bar Leib writes:
The Targum Yonatan in another one of his amazing visions said that the principle city in sending these fleets of ships would be Costantina, which is Constantinople now known as Istanbul, Turkey. There is one "problem" with Yonatan ben Uziel's sweeping description of End Times events. Rav Yonatan lived at the beginning of the first century of the common era before the destruction of the 2nd Temple. Constantine lived a full three centuries after the Targum Yonatan's death. There was no Constantinople for at least three centuries after the death of the Targum Yonaton!!! Yet, there it is, the name of the city in black and white, another unbelievable proof of the veracity of the Oral Torah!
The "problem" with this assertion is that according to the gemara (Megillah 3a), Yonatan ben Uzziel only wrote the Targum on Neviim, but not on Torah. The Targum on Torah they know of is explicitly only that of Onkelos HaGer:
וא"ר ירמיה ואיתימא רבי חייא בר אבא תרגום של תורה אונקלוס הגר אמרו מפי ר' אליעזר ור' יהושע תרגום של נביאים יונתן בן עוזיאל אמרו מפי חגי זכריה ומלאכי ונזדעזעה ארץ ישראל ארבע מאות פרסה על ארבע מאות פרסה יצתה בת קול ואמרה מי הוא זה שגילה סתריי לבני אדם עמד יונתן בן עוזיאל על רגליו ואמר אני הוא שגליתי סתריך לבני אדם גלוי וידוע לפניך שלא לכבודי עשיתי ולא לכבוד בית אבא אלא לכבודך עשיתי שלא ירבו מחלוקת בישראל ועוד ביקש לגלות תרגום של כתובים יצתה בת קול ואמרה לו דייך מ"ט משום דאית ביה קץ משיח ותרגום של תורה אונקלוס הגר אמרו
Indeed, that is why scholars call Targum Yonasan on the Torah by the title Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. It was all due a printer's error, where T"Y for Targum Yerushalmi was incorrectly expanded to Targum Yonatan. Wikipedia has a good writeup:
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan is a western targum (translation) of the Torah (Pentateuch) from the land of Israel (as opposed to the eastern Babylonian Targum Onkelos). Its correct title is Targum Yerushalmi ("Jerusalem Targum"), which is how it was known in medieval times. But because of a printer's mistake it was later labeled Targum Jonathan, in reference toJonathan ben Uzziel. Some editions of the Pentateuch continue to call it "Targum Jonathan" to this day.
The Talmud relates that Yonatan ben Uziel, a student of Hillel, fashioned an Aramaic translation of the Prophets. It makes no mention of any translation by him of the Torah. So all scholars agree that this Targum is not due to Yonatan ben Uziel. Indeed, de Rossi (16th century) reports that he saw two very similar complete Targumim to the Torah, one called Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel and the other called Targum Yerushalmi. A standard explanation is that the original title of this work wasTargum Yerushalmi, which was abbreviated to ת"י (TY), and these initials were then incorrectly expanded to Targum Yonatan which was then further incorrectly expanded to Targum Yonatan ben Uziel. For these reasons, scholars call it "Targum Pseudo-Jonathan".
It continues that due to internal evidence, scholars date it to after the Arab conquest. It is only due to an incorrect assumption that it was the Tanna who wrote it that one would take these references as sure evidence of prophecy.

This is why knowledge of when texts were written is extremely useful, and a positive thing. Vehameivin yavin.

11 comments:

Dov Bar-Leib said...

Does the fact that Yonatan ben Uziel wrote the fully recognized targum on Navi preclude him from having written a prior peirush on the Chumash? Who is this de Rossi to say that what he saw in the 16th century as the Targum Yerushalmi was not actually the Targum Yonatan ben Uziel? My Mikra'ot Gedolot has two targumim on the Chumash besides Onkelos. There is a Targum Yonatan and a Targum Yerushalmi. In short, when did the discussion of who wrote the T"Y on the Chumash originate? In what century? All we can say for sure from the Gemorrah in Megillah is that Yonatan ben Uziel wrote neither a peirush nor a targum on Kisuvim. Does anyone such as the Vilna Gaon or Rav Sa'adya Gaon or anyone of that stature in between come right out and say that Yonatan ben Uziel did not write a targum or a peirush on the Chumash? One way to know for sure is does the style of his targum on Navi vary substantially from the style of the peirush on the Chumash that is attributed to him? I am actually open to any reasonable proof from anyone who lived since he lived or from the 7th century onwards. The closer to the time of its authorhip, the easier it is provable.

One has to be wary of attempts to disprove original scholarship. Some of these attempts may have come from Apikorsim who see that T"Y is speaking about cities that did not exist for another 300 years, and say to themselves that he could not have written about such cities at the time that he lived because the cities did not exist. The consequences of accepting that he did indeed mention those cities by name might be for such apikorsim too unfathomable to consider.

Dov Bar-Leib said...

Ah, just figured out which de Rossi the Wiki article linked to. It is Azariah ben Moses dei Rossi . His principle work was Me'or Eynaim. His work was sharply criticized by the Maharal of Prague and Rav Yosef Caro of the Shulchan Aruch wanted the book burned. But he passed away before signing the order to burn Dei Rossi's book. Apparently Dei Rossi did not get all the proper haskamot of the contemporaries of his day. Now, I personally am against book burning of any sort, but when the author of the Shulchan Aruch wants to burn your book, that is a bad sign that something might be wrong with your ideas.

joshwaxman said...

"Does the fact that Yonatan ben Uziel wrote the fully recognized targum on Navi preclude him from having written a prior peirush on the Chumash?"
yes, because the gemara explicitly writes who the (one) author of targum on Chumash was. and that same gemara said where he received his tradition of the targum on Neviim (chagai, zecharia and malachi), and that he was prevented from offering further Targum.

"My Mikra'ot Gedolot has two targumim on the Chumash besides Onkelos. There is a Targum Yonatan and a Targum Yerushalmi."
I have the same Mikraos Gedolos.
Targum Yerushalmi is fragmentary, and appears where there is a divergence from Yonatan, but does correspond quite closely to Tg Yonatan. If you would look at the full Tg Yerushalmi -- if we had it -- I would guess that it would be mainly identical with Tg Yonatan. I don't think de Rossi was lying to us. And there are different nuschaot in Onkelos as well, but since it never acquired separate names, no publisher of Mikraot Gedolot put them side by side as separate translations.

"Does anyone such as the Vilna Gaon or Rav Sa'adya Gaon or anyone of that stature in between come right out and say that Yonatan ben Uziel did not write a targum or a peirush on the Chumash?"
Rav Saadia Gaon, and those of that period, did not refer to it as Targum Yonatan. As the Wikipedia article states, " Its correct title is Targum Yerushalmi ("Jerusalem Targum"), which is how it was known in medieval times." They also never referred to a Targum by Ravina, even to say that they did not publish such a Targum.

That is, you won't find early Rishonim referring to Targum Yonasan as Targum Yonasan, but as Targum Yerushalmi. That is pretty telling. (The first to ascribe this to Yonatan was R' Menachem Recanati.)

I don't know of Acharonim offhand who say explicitly this about Targum Yonasan, no. I never bothered to accumulate sources. But not every one was aware of the evidence. This was not their general field of interest, and if it stated in some text that it was Tg Yonatan, who says that would have thought to even question it.

One way to know for sure is does the style of his targum on Navi vary substantially from the style of the peirush on the Chumash that is attributed to him?
according to this book, the linguistic style of Onkelos and Targum on Navi is quite similar; and separately, the linguistic style of Tg Yonatan and Targum Yerushalmi is quite similar.

Apikorsim who see that T"Y is speaking about cities that did not exist for another 300 years
Perhaps, but it was never originally a Jewish claim. And besides, it is a sensible claim even to a non-apikores. The Targum was meant to be readable and understandable to the common folk. I would have expected him to refer to it by the name they would have known.

joshwaxman said...

"that is a bad sign that something might be wrong with your ideas."

there are ideas and there are testimonies. he said he saw these two manuscripts, side by side, nearly identical, but labelled differently. do you think he was lying?

Mar Gavriel said...

1. I think that the association of T"Y with Jonathan ben Uzziel is older than printing; if anything, it's a manuscript error (13th or 14th century), not a printer's. Doesn't the Recanati refer to T"Y as "Targum Jonathan"?

2. The explanation that the initials have been misinterpreted sounds dubious to me. (There are a number of similar stories about other words, and they are often incorrect.) Rather, I think that it's a simple case of pseudonomy -- the name of a famous Targumist has been associated with a late, anonymous Targum.

3. Dr. Richard White, of Yeshiva University, has argued that the original layers of "Targum Jonathan" on the Torah actually do go back to Tannaitic times, and perhaps to the person Jonathan ben Uzziel. (He notes that T"Y translates ואהבת לרעך כמוך as דעלך סני לחברך אל תעבד, which is the rule of Hillel, supposedly Jonathan's teacher.) I'm not convinced by the arguments, but I think it's worth putting on the table that at least one serious scholar takes the idea seriously.

Mar Gavriel said...

Oh, of course Dr. White agrees that the bits of T"Y which refer to later events, such as Islam or (here) Constantinople, are later accretions.

joshwaxman said...

'Doesn't the Recanati refer to T"Y as "Targum Jonathan"'

yes. see above. i've also seen it argued that an ambiguous Zohar (that Yonatan wrote on 'mikra') helped things along. in terms of (2), pseudonomy sounds quite plausible to me. rav hai gaon referred to it as the targum yosef.

if anything, it's a manuscript error (13th or 14th century), not a printer's
indeed, that is how Jewish Encyclopedia puts it -- two manuscripts, not two printed texts:

"Azariah dei Rossi, who lived in the sixteenth century, states ("Me'or 'Enayim," ed. Wilna, p. 127) that he saw two manuscripts of the Palestinian Targum which agreed in every detail, one of which was entitled "Targum Yerushalmi" and the other "Targum Jonathan b. Uzziel." The editio princeps of the complete Palestinian Targum was printed from the latter (Venice, 1591), thus giving currency to the erroneous title."

kol tuv,
josh

joshwaxman said...

See also Shadal who says the same about Targum Yonasan:

http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=20619&st=&pgnum=82

kt,
josh

Shmuel said...

the full Tg Yerushalmi -- if we had it --

IIRC we do have it, in Torah Shlemah vol. 25 (?)

joshwaxman said...

thanks;
i'll try to track it down.

kt,
josh

joshwaxman said...

there is this on hebrewbooks:
http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=35819&st=&pgnum=2

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