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The Targums: A Critical Introduction is unavailable, but you can change that!

The value of the Targums—translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, the language of Palestinian Jews for centuries following the Babylonian Exile—lies in their approach to translation: within a typically literal rendering of a text, they incorporate extensive exegetical material, additions, and paraphrases. These alterations reveal important information about Second Temple Judaism, its...

analogues to indicate the Aramaic translation delivered orally in the synagogue service.10 This book will use the word “Targum” to designate Aramaic translations of books of the Hebrew Bible done by Jews during the rabbinic period. This description is based upon four basic elements of the Targums’ character: (1) Aramaic translations of (2) books of the Hebrew Bible (3) done by Jews (4) during the rabbinic period. To qualify as a Targum in this description, the text must meet all four criteria. While
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