The Targum Of Isaiah

Designed for those who are beginning Targum study, this book also provides material for those who have already made some progress. Beginners will have recourse first of all to the Translation, and the Notes are intended to help orient them in the message conveyed by the Targum in its two levels. Students with recourse to Aramaic will perhaps require remarks of a linguistic and textual nature; these are given in the Apparatus. Additional material for more advanced students is also offered in the Notes, to help relate the exegesis of the Targum to the intertestamental document, Rabbinica, and the New Testament.

This is the first attempt systematically to explain the growth, background and ideology of the Targum to Isaiah. Its principal stages of development between the first and fourth centuries CE are described in order to understand as precisely as possible its hope for God's messianic vindication of his people. Chilton's work demonstrates the paradigmatic significance of the Isaiah Targum within the Prophets Targum as a whole, and convincingly places the Targum in its chronological and theological context.

This remarkable survey introduces critical knowledge and insights that have emerged over the past forty years, including targum manuscripts discovered this century and targums known in Aramaic but only recently translated into English. Prolific scholars Flesher and Chilton guide readers in understanding the development of the targums; their relationship to the Hebrew Bible; their dates, language, and place in the history of Christianity and Judaism; and their theologies and methods of interpretation.

Jonathan Ben Uziel, the author of the Chaldee Paraphrases on the major and minor Prophets lived thirty years before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was a disciple of Hillel. This author is held by the Jews in the highest esteem. His paraphrases are considered by the Synagogue as inspired. These paraphrases contain the doctrines of Christianity, expressed and enforced in the plainest language. The unprejudiced Jew by reading this Paraphrase will see, that we Christians believe in no other salvation, than that which their fathers expected the Messiah should bring.

This volume is concerned with the origin and development of the Targum to the Prophets, focusing for this purpose upon the Twelve Prophets (from Nahum to Malachi). A wide-ranging introductory chapter sets current research in context by surveying almost two centuries of Targumic study. It is argued that the evidence in the extant text for a Second Commonwealth phase in the Targum's history is meagre and that, in particular, the Qumran Habakkuk pesher is not dependent upon the Targum to Habakkuk. Other issues discussed are the Hebrew Vorlage of the Targum, incipit formulae, 'Additional Targum' and the standard Targum, the haggadah in the Targum to Zechariah 3 in the light of a (so-called) Eastern Aramaic linguistic element, Targum and Peshiṭta, land and divine presence, and the final redaction of the Targum.