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Chapter 1 Introduction

In the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century Christian printers in Europe published Targum texts and provided them with Latin translations. Four complete polyglot Bibles were produced in this period (1517–1657), each containing more Targumic material than the previous one. Several others were planned or even started, but most plans were hampered by lack of money. And in between, every decade one or more Biblical books in Aramaic and Latin saw the light. This is remarkable, since the Targums were Jewish translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic and scarcely functioned in the Jewish liturgy anymore.1 Jews used them primarily as a means to teach Aramaic in the Jewish educational system.2 Yet, Christian scholars were, as parts of the new human- ist atmosphere, interested in ancient texts and their interpretations. And the Targums were interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, the ultimate source of the Christian Old Testament. Moreover, they were written in Aramaic, a language so close to Hebrew that their Jewish translators must have understood the original text more thoroughly than any scholar brought up in another tongue. In contrast, many scholars of those days objected to the study of Jewish lit- erature, including the Targums. A definition of Targum is ‘a translation that combines a highly literal rendering of the original text with material added into the translation in a seamless manner’.3 Moreover, ‘poetic passages are often expanded rather than translated.’4 Christian scholars were interested in the ‘highly literal rendering’, but often rejected the added and expanded ma- terial. The latter was described as typically rabbinic, as fables and nonsense. The fact is therefore that the Targum was almost never called a translatio or versio, ‘translation’, but always an interpretation or paraphrase. And for the

1 Peter Sh. Lehnhardt, ‘The Role of Targum Samuel in European Jewish Liturgy’, in: Alberdina Houtman et al. (eds), A Jewish Targum in a Christian World (Jewish and Christian Perspectives, 27; Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014), 32–62, esp. 57–58. 2 Alberdina Houtman, ‘The Role of the Targum in Jewish Education in Medieval Europe’, in: Alberdina Houtman et al. (eds), A Jewish Targum in a Christian World (Jewish and Christian Perspectives, 27; Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014), 81–98, esp. 95–96. 3 Paul V.M. Flesher & Bruce Chilton, The Targums. A Critical Introduction (Studies in the Aramaic Interpretation of Scripture, 12; Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2011), 36. 4 Flesher & Chilton, The Targums, 40.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004355934_002 2 Chapter 1 same reason only the literal Targum Onkelos to the Torah was published in the first polyglot Bible, i.e. the Complutensian Polyglot, and not the other Targums. When one and a half century later all the extant Targums were included in the London Polyglot Bible, the editor gave the following advice to his readers con- cerning these Aramaic translations: ‘Eat the date, but throw its peelings away.’5 Objection had been even worse for other Jewish Aramaic books. To mention one example, in the beginning of the sixteenth century an argument erupted between Johannes Pfefferkorn, a Jewish convert, and Johannes Reuchlin. The first wanted to confiscate and burn all Talmuds, the latter argued that these books were valuable for Jews, who had their rights too, and also for Christians.6 Desiderius Erasmus more or less agreed with Pfefferkorn, because he consid- ered all Jewish literature a great danger to Christian society.7 Andreas Masius, by contrast, a Biblical humanist and later one of Montano’s helpers in the pro- duction of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible, wrote letters to several dignitaries to prevent the destruction of these precious books.8 This discussion shows some general arguments for and against the use of Jewish literature. Pfefferkorn stressed that the Talmud posed an obstacle for the Jews to convert. Erasmus expressed another concern, for he was afraid that the study of Jewish literature would lead to a Christianity of ‘rites and ceremonies’, of ‘external forms’, which he called judaismus.9 He even feared ‘a tide’ of judaismus in society and in the Church.10 Reuchlin and Masius, however, were convinced of the benefit of Jewish literature. Reuchlin thought that both Talmud and Kabbalah could be used for the conversion of the Jews.11 Masius agreed with him,12 but his letter about the matter gives the impression that he was more concerned about his

5 Babylonian Talmud, Hag. 15b; quote from LPB, introduction 12, section 16, where it is in- dicated as a quotation from Johann Buxtorf, Florilegium Hebraicum: Continens elegantes sententias, proverbia, apophthegmata, similitudines … (Basel: Ludwig König, 1648), 152. 6 Hans Jansen, ‘Het protest van Erasmus tegen de renaissance van Hebreeuwse literatuur’, Getuigen. Tussen geschiedenis en gedachtenis 74/1 (2002), 5–40, esp. 15–16; Amnon Raz- Krakotzkin, The Censor, the Editor, and the Text: The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 38–45. 7 Jansen, ‘Het protest van Erasmus’, 22. 8 Joseph Perles, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Hebräischen und Aramäischen Studien (Munich: Theodor Ackermann, 1884), 223–27. 9 Jansen, ‘Het protest van Erasmus’, 15. 10 Jansen, ‘Het protest van Erasmus’, 28–31. 11 Jansen, ‘Het protest van Erasmus’, 20. 12 Raz-Krakotzkin, The Censor, the Editor, and the Text, 58, cf. 110.