442 - Le Targum de Job de la Grotte XI de Qumran

Le Targum de Job de la Grotte XI de Qumran
Edited and translated by J. P. M. van der Ploeg, O.P., and A. S. van der Woude
Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1971. 98 pp. f.120.00.

This volume presents the Aramaic text and French translation of the Targum of job from Cave 11 of Qumran (noted as 11QtgJob). It is composed of thirty-eight columns which contain parts of Job 17:14-36:13 and a relatively well preserved section from 37:10 to 42:11.

In 1961 the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences acquired from the Palestine Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem the exclusive right to study and edit the manuscript. The work was entrusted to Professors van der Ploeg and van der Woude. From 1962 to 1964 several preliminary reports by the editors appeared, which described the scroll and gave a summary of its contents.

The scroll was composed of two leather rolls of thirty-four columns each, the second roll beginning at Job 22:16. Each column bad sixteen or seventeen lines. Since the targumic amplifications of the Hebrew text are very simple and brief, the Qumran text is just slightly longer than the extant Hebrew text of Job.

On the basis of the palaeographic studies of Albright, Cross, Birnbaum, and Avigad, the editors conclude that the manuscript may be dated sometime in the first century of our era, probably around A.D. 50. The study of the lexicography, syntax, and forms

443 - Le Targum de Job de la Grotte XI de Qumran

leads to the conclusion that the document was composed in pre-Christian times, between Daniel and the Genesis Apocryphon between 150 and 200 B.C.

The presence of four Persian words (possibly one other) in the text shows considerable Persian influence on the language of the period. On the other hand, the absence of Greek loan words (with the possible exception of one example) seems strange when one considers the strong Hellenistic influence in Palestine in these days.

This manuscript may well be the oldest Targum known to us. The editors suggest that a scroll similar to this one may have been referred to in the Talmudic story which relates that both Rabban Gamaliel I (Paul's tutor) and Rabban Gamaliel II disapproved of reading a targum on job and ordered it placed in the Genizah (Bab. Shabbat 115a). The targumic style in this scroll is very simple, with no extensive paraphrases or amplifications, and the text is based on a Hebrew original that is very close to that of the Massoretes. The text shows no literary dependence either on the LXX or on the Peshitta, and it is quite independent of the Targum of Job printed in the polyglots. It does not reflect the strong anti-anthropomorphic tendency of the later Targums (Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, Palestinian, etc.), although several renderings have special theological significance for Jewish and Christian theology.

The introduction to the volume is concise but adequate. An index of Aramaic words is a helpful addition to the book (pp. 89-98), as well as the thirty plates of the original fragments. This is a beautiful production which will hopefully serve as a model for future publications.

Charles T. Fritsch
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey