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CHAPTER V.

ON THE ANTIENT VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES.

NEXT to the kindred languages, versions afford the greatest assistance to the interpretation of the Scriptures, "It is only by means of versions, that they, who are ignorant of the original languages, can at all learn what the Scripture contains; and every version, so far as it is just, conveys the sense of Scripture to those who understand the language in which it is written."

Versions may be divided into two classes, antient and modern : the former were made immediately from the original languages by persons to whom they were familiar; and who, it may be reasonably supposed, had better opportunities for ascertaining the force and meaning of words, than more recent translators can possibly have. Modern versions are those made in later times, and chiefly since the reformation they are useful for explaining the sense of the inspired writers, while antient versions are of the utmost importance both of the criticism and interpretation of the Scriptures. The present chapter will therefore be appropriated to giving an account of those which are most esteemed for their antiquity and excellence.

SECTION I.

ANTIENT VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

THE principal antient versions, which illustrate the Scriptures, are the Chaldee paraphrases, generally called Targums, the Septuagint, or Alexandrian Greek Version, the translations of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and what are called the fifth, sixth, and seventh versions, (of which latter translations fragments only are extant,) together with the Syriac, and Latin or Vulgate versions. Although the authors of these versions did not flourish at the time when the Hebrew language was spoken, yet they enjoyed many advantages for understanding the Bible, especially the Old Testament, which are not possessed by the moderns: for, living near the time when that language was vernacular, they could learn by tradition the true signification of some Hebrew words, which is now forgotten. Many of them also being Jews, and from their childhood accustomed to hear the Rabbins explain the Scripture, the study of which they diligently cultivated, and likewise speaking a dialect allied to the Hebrew, they could not but become well acquainted with the latter. Hence it may be safely inferred that the antient versions generally give the true sense of Scripture, and not unfrequently in passages where it could scarcely be discovered by any other means. All the antient versions, indeed, are of great importance both in the criticism, as well as in the interpretation, of the sacred writings, but they are not all witnesses of equal value; for the authority of the different versions depends partly on the age and country of their respective

authors, partly on the text whence their translations were made, and partly on the ability and fidelity with which they were executed. It will therefore be not irrelevant to offer a short historical notice of the principal versions above mentioned, as well as of some other antient versions of less celebrity perhaps, but which have been beneficially consulted by biblical critics.

1. OF THE TARGUMS, OR CHALDEE PARAphrases.

L Targum of Onkelos; — II. Of the Pseudo-Jonathan ; — III. The Jerusalem Targum; -IV. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel; -V. The Targum on the Hagiographa; - VI. The Targum on the Megilloth; - VII, VIII, IX. Three Targums on the Book of Esther;-X. Real value of the different Targums.

THE Chaldee word TaRGUM signifies, in general, any version or explanation; but this appellation is more particularly restricted to the versions or paraphrases of the Old Testament, executed in the East-Aramæan or Chaldee dialect, as it is usually called. These Targums are termed paraphrases or expositions, because they are rather comments and explications, than literal translations of the text: they are written in the Chaldee tongue, which became familjar to the Jews after the time of their captivity in Babylon, and was more known to them than the Hebrew itself: so that, when the law was "read in the synagogue every Sabbath day," in pure biblical Hebrew, an explanation was subjoined to it in Chaldee; in order to render it intelligible to the people, who had but an imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew language. This practice, as already observed, originated with Ezra : as there are no traces of any written Targums prior to those of Onkelos and Jonathan, who are supposed to have lived about the time of our Saviour, it is highly probable that these paraphrases were at first merely oral; that, subsequently, the ordinary glosses on the more difficult passages were committed to writing; and that, as the Jews were bound by an ordinance of their elders to possess a copy of the law, these glosses were either afterwards collected together and deficiencies in them supplied, or new and connected paraphrases were formed..

There are at present extant ten paraphrases on different parts of the Old Testament, three of which comprise the Pentateuch, or five

1 See pp. 3, 4. supra. Our account of the Chaldee paraphrases is drawn up from a careful consideration of what has been written on them, by Carpzov, in his Critica Sacra, part ii. c. i. pp. 430-481.; Bishop Walton, Prol. c. 12. sect. ii. pp. PP. 36-58.; 568-592.; Leusden, in Philolog. Hebræo-Mixt. Diss. v. vi. and vii. Dr. Prideaux, Connection, part ii. book viii. sub anno 37. B. c. vol. iii. pp. 531555. (edit. 1718.) Kortholt, De variis Scripturæ Editionibus, c. iii. pp. 34-51.; Pfeiffer, Critica Sacra, cap. viii. sect. ii. (Op. tom. ii. pp. 750-771.), and in his pp. 862-889.); Treatise de Theologia Judaicâ, &c. Exercit. ii. (Ibid. tom. ii. Bauer, Critica Sacra, tract. iii. pp. 288-308.; Rambach. Inst. Herm. Sacræ, pp. 606-611.: Pictet, Theologie Chretienne, tom. i. pp. 145. et seq.; Jahn, Introductio, ad Libros Veteris Fœderis, pp. 69 -75. ; and Wehner's Antiquitates Ebræorum, tom. i. pp. 156-170.

books of Moses:-1. The Targum of Onkelos; 2. That falsely ascribed to Jonathan, and usually cited as the Targum of the PseudoJonathan ; and 3. The Jerusalem Targum; 4. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, (i. e. the son of Uzziel) on the Prophets; 5. The Targum of Rabbi Joseph the blind, or one-eyed, on the Hagiographa; 6. An anonymous Targum on the five Megilloth, or books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastés, Song of Solomon, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah; 7, 8, 9. Three Targums on the book of Esther; and, 10. A Targum or paraphrase on the two books of Chronicles. These Targums, taken together, form a continued paraphrase on the Old Testament, with the exception of the books of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah (antiently reputed to be part of Ezra ;) which being for the most part written in Chaldee, it has been conjectured that no paraphases were written on them, as being unnecessary; though Dr. Prideaux is of opinion that Targums were composed on these books also, which have perished in the lapse of ages.

The language, in which these paraphrases are composed, varies in purity according to the time when they were respectively written. Thus, the Targums of Onkelos and the Pseudo-Jonathan are much purer than the others, approximating very nearly to the Aramaan dialect in which some parts of Daniel and Ezra are written, except indeed that the orthography does not always correspond; while the language of the later Targums whence the rabbinical dialect derives its source, is far more impure, and is intermixed with barbarous and foreign words. Originally, all the Chaldee paraphrases were written without vowel-points, like all other oriental manuscripts: but at length some persons ventured to add points to them, though very erroneously, and this irregular punctuation was retained in the Venice and other early editions of the Hebrew Bible. Some further imperfect attempts towards regular pointing were made both in the Complutensian and in the Antwerp Polyglotts, until at length the elder Buxtorf, in his edition of the Hebrew Bible published at Basil, undertook the thankless task1 of improving the punctuation of the Targums, according to such rules as he had formed from the pointing which he had found in the Chaldee parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra; and his method of punctuation is followed in Bishop Walton's Polyglott.

I. The Targum of Onkelos. It is not known with certainty, at what time Onkelos flourished, nor of what nation he was: Professor Eichhorn conjectures that he was a native of Babylon, first because he is mentioned in the Babylonish Talmud; secondly, because his dialect is not the Chaldee spoken in Palestine, but much purer, and more closely resembling the style of Daniel and Ezra; and lastly, because he has not interwoven any of those fabulous narratives to which the Jews of Palestine were so much attached, and from which

1 Pére Simon, Hist. Crit. du Vieux Test. liv. ii. c. viii. has censured Buxtorf's mode of pointing the Chaldee paraphrases with great severity; observing, that he would have done much better if he had more diligently examined manuscripts that were more correctly pointed.

they could with difficulty refrain. The generally received opinion is, that he was a proselyte to Judaism, and a disciple of the celebrated Rabbi Hillel, who flourished about 50 years before the Christian æra ; and consequently that Onkelos was contemporary with our Saviour: Bauer and Jahn, however, place him in the second century. The Targum of Onkelos comprises the Pentateuch or five books of Moses, and is justly preferred to all the others both by Jews and Christians, on account of the purity of its style, and its general freedom from idle legends. It is rather a version than a paraphrase, and renders the Hebrew text word for word, with so much accuracy and exactness, that being set to the same musical notes, with the original Hebrew, it could be read in the same tone as the latter in the public assemblies of the Jews. And this we find was the practice of the Jews up to the time of Rabbi Elias Levita; who flourished in the early part of the sixteenth century, and expressly states that the Jews read the law in their synagogues, first in Hebrew and then in the Targum of Onkelos. This Targum has been translated into Latin by Alfonso de Zamora, Paulus Fagius, Bernardinus Baldus, and Andrew de Leon, of Zamora.1

II. The second Targum, which is a more liberal paraphrase of the Pentateuch than the preceding, is usually called the Targum of the Pseudo-Jonathan, being ascribed by many to Jonathan Ben Uzziel who wrote the much esteemed Paraphrase on the Prophets. But the difference in the style and diction of this Targum, which is very impure, as well as in the method of paraphrasing adopted in it, clearly proves that it could not have been written by Jonathan Ben Uzziel, who indeed sometimes indulges in allegories and has introduced a few barbarisms; but this Targum on the law abounds with the most idle Jewish legends that can well be conceived; which, together with the barbarous and foreign words it contains, render it of very little utility. From its mentioning the six parts of the Talmud (on Exod. xxvi. 9.) which compilation was not written till two centuries after the birth of Christ ;- Constantinople (on Numb. xxiv. 19.) which city was always called Byzantium until it received its name from Constantine the Great, in the beginning of the fourth century; the Lombards (on Num. xxiv. 24.) whose first irruption into Italy did not take place until the year 570; and the Turks (on Gen. x. 2.) who did not become conspicuous till the middle of the sixth century, learned men are unanimously of opinion that this Targum of the Pseudo-Jonathan could not have been written before the seventh, or even the eighth century. It has been translated into Latin by Anthony Ralph de Chevalier, an eminent French Protestant divine, in the sixteenth century.

III. The Jerusalem Targum, which also paraphrases the five books of Moses, derives its name from the dialect in which it is composed. It is by no means a connected paraphrase, sometimes omit

I The fullest information, concerning the Targum of Onkelos, is to be found in the disquisition of G. B. Winer, entitled, De Onkeloso ejusque Paraphrasi Chaldaica Dissertatio, 4to. Lipsiæ, 1820.

ting whole verses, or even chapters; at other times explaining only a single word of a verse, of which it sometimes gives a two-fold interpretation; and at others, Hebrew words are inserted without any explanation whatever. In many respects it corresponds with the paraphrase of the Pseudo-Jonathan, whose legendary tales are here frequently repeated, abridged, or expanded. From the impurity of its style, and the number of Greek, Latin, and Persian words which it contains, Bishop Walton, Carpzov, Wolfius, and many other eminent philologers, are of opinion, that it is a compilation by several authors, and consists of extracts and collections. From these internal evidences, the commencement of the seventh century has been assigned as its probable date; but it is more likely not to have been written before the eighth or perhaps the ninth century. This Targum was also translated into Latin by Chevalier, and by Francis Taylor. IV. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel. According to the talmudical traditions, the author of this paraphrase was chief of the eighty distinguished scholars of Rabbi Hillel the elder, and a fellow disciple of Simeon the Just, who bore the infant Messiah in his arms: consequently he would be nearly contemporary with Onkelos. Wolfius, however, is of opinion that he flourished a short time before the birth of Christ, and compiled the work which bears his name, from more antient Targums that had been preserved to his time by oral tradition. From the silence of Origen and Jerome concerning this Targum, of which they could not but have availed themselves if it had really existed in their time, and also from its being cited in the Talmud, both Bauer and Jahn date it much later than is generally admitted the former indeed is of opinion that its true date cannot be ascertained; and the latter, from the inequalities of style and method observable in it, considers it as a compilation from the interpretations of several learned men, made about the close of the third or fourth century. This paraphrase treats on the Prophets, that is (according to the Jewish classification of the sacred writings), on the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Sam. 1 & 2 Kings, who are termed the former prophets; and on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets, who are designated as the latter prophets. Though the style of this Targum is not so pure and elegant as that of Onkelos, yet it is not disfigured by those legendary tales and numerous foreign and barbarous words which abound in the later Targums. Both the language and method of interpretation, however, are irregular: in the exposition of the former prophets, the text is more closely rendered than in that on the latter, which is less accurate, as well as more paraphrastical, and interspersed with some traditions and fabulous legends. In order to attach the greater authority to the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, the Jews, not satisfied with making him contemporary with the prophets Malachi, Zechariah, and Haggai, and asserting that he received it from their lips, have related, that while Jonathan was composing his paraphrase, there was an earthquake for forty leagues

1 Bibliotheca Hebraica, tom. i. p. 1160.

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