The Aramaic Bible, Volume 1B: Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis
Overview
While any translation of the Scriptures may in Hebrew be called a targum, the word is used especially for a translation of a book of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. Before the Christian era, Aramaic had in good part replaced Hebrew in Palestine as the vernacular of the Jews. It continued as their vernacular for centuries later and remained in part as the language of the schools after Aramaic itself had been replaced as the vernacular.
The Aramaic Bible, Volume 1B: Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis translates an incorrectly attributed to Jonathan ben Uzziel targum, which is part of the Palestinian Targums. It has been call Pseudo-Jonathan to rectify this mistaken identification. Pseudo-Jonathan provides us with a translation of almost every verse of the Pentateuch. Unique from other Targums of the Pentateuch in many ways, this Targum is also very much a composite work, but one composed with skill and initiative.
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- Offers a translation by experts in Aramaic and Hebrew
- Contains succinct verse-by-verse translation
- Preserves the particular and peculiar nature of the original Aramaic translations
Most Highlighted Verses in The Aramaic Bible, Volume 1B: Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis
Genesis 1:7: God made the firmament—its thickness being three finger breadths—between the limits of the heavens and the waters of the ocean, and he separated the waters that were under the firmament from the waters that were above in the reservoir of the firmament. And it was so.
Genesis 1:26–27: And God said to the angels who minister before him, who were created on the second day of the creation of the world, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds that are in the air of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” And God created Adam in his own likeness, in the image of God he created him, with two hundred and forty-eight members, with six hundred and sixty five nerves, and he formed a skin over him, and filled it with flesh and blood; male and female in their appearance he created them.
Genesis 2:15–18: The Lord God took Adam from the mountain of worship, the place whence he had been created, and made him dwell in the garden of Eden to labor in the law and to keep its commandments.And the Lord God commanded Adam saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of which those who eat its fruit have the wisdom to distinguish good and evil, you shall not eat, because on the day on which you eat <of it> you shall incur the death-penalty.” …
Genesis 2:24–25: Therefore a man shall leave and be separated from the bedroom of his father and of his mother, and he shall be united to his wife, and the two of them shall become one flesh. And the two of them were wise, Adam and his wife, but they did not remain in their glory.
Genesis 3:19: “By the labor of your hand you shall eat food until you return to the dust from which you were created, because dust you are, and to dust you will return; but from the dust you are destined to arise to render an account and a reckoning of all you have done, on the day of great judgment.”
Genesis 3:21: And the Lord God made garments of glory for Adam and for his wife from the skin which the serpent had cast off (to be worn) on the skin of their flesh, instead of their (garments of) fingernails of which they had been stripped, and he clothed them.
Genesis 4:1: Adam knew his wife Eve who had conceived from Sammael, the angel of the Lord.
Genesis 8:7: and he sent forth the raven. It went to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth.
Genesis 14:18–20: The righteous king—that is Shem, the son of Noah—king of Jerusalem, went out to meet Abram, and brought him bread and wine; at that time he was ministering before God Most High.He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram from (before) God Most High, who created the heavens and the earth for the sake of the righteous.And blessed be God Most High, who has made those who hate you like a shield that receives a blow.” And he gave him a tithe of all that he had brought back.
Genesis 17:15–16: And the Lord said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her in her body, and I will also give you a son from her. I will bless him, and she shall become assemblies, and kings (who) will rule over the nations shall come from her.”
The Aramaic Bible series, under McNamara’s able leadership, has brought the difficult world of Targum to a larger audience of biblical scholars.
—Gary A. Rendsburg, Cornell University
Michael Maher, a professor of management at the University of California-Davis, previously taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, and the University of Washington. He also worked on the audit staff at Arthur Andersen & Co. and was a self-employed financial consultant for small businesses. He received his BBA from Gonzaga University (which named him Distinguished Alumnus in 1989), and his MBA and PhD from the University of Washington, and earned the CPA from the state of Washington.