Towards a Typology for the Targum Sheni of Esther

Aramaic Studies Aramaic Studies 9.1 (2011) 47–63 www.brill.nl/arst

Targum a Misnomer for Midrash? Towards a Typology for the Targum Sheni of Esther

Robert Hayward University of Durham

The title of this paper evokes the well known description which Alexander Sperber applied to Targum Sheni of Esther in his 1968 publication The Bible in Aramaic IVA.1 Pointing out that he had made no attempt to produce a critical edition of Targum Sheni, or of any other Targum included in that volume, Sperber remarked: ‘The reason for it is obvious: these texts are not Targum- texts but Midrash-texts in the disguise of Targum’.2 Roger le Déaut points out that the categorising of Targum Sheni as more Midrash than Targum is found already in the work of Leopold Zunz; and this position has had many advocates since Zunz’s time.3 This state of aﬀairs may, perhaps, be reﬂected in earlier sources: Tosafot at b. Hag. 11a speak of this Aramaic text as

1) See A. Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic,IVA.The Hagiographa Transition from Translation to Midrash (Leiden: Brill, 1968). This title, which is printed on the English side of the book’s cover, summarizes some key aspects of Sperber’s approach to the texts included in the volume, namely, Targumim of Chronicles, Ruth, Canticles, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. 2) See Sperber, The Bible in Aramaic IVA, p. viii. 3) See R. le Déaut, Introduction à la Littérature Targumique Première Partie (Rome: Pontiﬁcal Biblical Institute, 1988), p. 141,note5, citing Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden, (Frankfurt am Main, 2nd edn., 1892), p. 83: he records also Wilhelm Bacher’s similar opinion, and himself declares that Targum Sheni ‘can be considered more as a midrash than a Targum’. However, he immediately notes (p. 142) that Rashi, commenting on Deut. 3.4, had referred to it as Targum Jerushalmi: this prompts him to state that Targum Sheni is, in fact, an authentic Palestinian Targum, in support of which he again (p. 142,note1)cites Zunz, along with S. Baer, ‘Ueber den Geist des Jeruschalmi (Pseudo-Jonathan)’, MGWJ 1 (1851–1852), p. 235, and A. Díez Macho, ‘Un Segundo Fragmento del Targum Palestinese a los Profetas’, Biblica 39 (1958), p. 203.

‘Targum Megilllat Esther’, and Rashi, commenting on Deut. 3.4, designates it ‘Targum Jerushalmi’; whereas Tosafot at b. Meg. 12b refer to it as ‘Midrash’. A typological proﬁle of the text’s surface of the kind which the Manchester- Durham Typology Research Project is now able to supply, might, perhaps, lead to some clariﬁcation of the issues involved, and some new insights into an old problem. Bernard Grossfeld’s critical edition of the oldest known manuscript of Targum Sheni, MS Sassoon 282, forms the basis of the following analysis.4 Completed in 1189, the text presented in this MS signals its boundaries with reference to the Masoretic Text of Megillat Esther. Thus it ends with the closing words of MT Est. 10.3, ‘and speaking peace to all his descendants’, closely translated into Aramaic; and it opens with an extended exposition of the opening words of the Megillah, ‘and it came to pass in the days of Ahashverosh’. All MSS witnesses to the text, except only British Library MS Or. 2375 and Paris Heb. 110, set the Hebrew text of Esther along with the Aramaic.5 The Hebrew is either written out in full, Masoretic verse by Masoretic verse, immediately before the corresponding Targum of each verse; or it is provided, in some witnesses, in columns running parallel with the corresponding Aramaic.6 In MS Copenhagen 10.3 (5,11)theHebrewwords beginning a verse may sometimes be provided as introduction for the Targum of that verse. The presence of the Hebrew Text in these, the vast majority of witnesses, does not form part of the fabric of the Targum’s text, and thus of its literary constitution; it does, however, allow us to make some preliminary observations.7

4) See B. Grossfeld, The Targum Sheni to the Book of Esther: A Critical Edition Based on MS Sassoon 282 with Critical Apparatus (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1994). 5) TheevidenceissetoutsuccinctlybyB.Grossfeld,The Two Targums of Esther: Translated with Apparatus and Notes (The Aramaic Bible, 18;Edinburgh:T&TClark,1991), pp. 3–6; see also B. Ego, Targum Scheni zu Esther: Übersetzung, Kommentar und theologische Deutung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), pp. 8–9. 6) MS Sassoon 282 has the Hebrew verse written out in full before its Targum: similarly MS Nürnberg, Municipal Library, Solg. MS 1.7.20; MS Breslau Stadts Bibliotek 1106;MSBerlin 35;MSHamburg-Levy13 (5); MS Parma 3231 (Rossi 31); and MS Parma 3235 (Rossi 42/1). Witnesses with the Hebrew supplied in a column parallel to the corresponding Targum include MS Budapest National Museum 2°4; MS Sydney University, Nicholson 33;MS Ambrosiana Milan 5/3 (B 35 Inf.); and MS Moscow-Ginzburg 119/7, although some of these also alternate the Hebrew with its Aramaic Targum: see Grossfeld, The TwoTargums,pp.4–5. 7) The edition of Paul de Lagarde in Hagiographa Chaldaice (Leipzig: Teubner, 1873)includes no Hebrew verses, and reproduces the text of Targum Sheni given in the First Rabbinic Bible of Felix Pratensis (Venice: Bomberg 1516/1517).