Targum

[NickHassan]

Hi,
In another post Is 1.18 said this
“It's more likely that in John 19:37 John used a targum. He made a slight alteration of the Hebrew text in his Gospel to facilitate his personal understanding of the Zechariah passage. It's quite common practice for NT writers to do this, as you probably already know WIT. The NT is full of imperfectly translated, even paraphrased quotations OT scriptures. I think that John recognised that the “me” in the Zech 12:10 was Yeshua and his targum reflected this.”
Does that fit with this from Wikipedia?

Targum
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This article is about the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible. For other uses, see Targum (disambiguation).
A targum (plural: targumim) is an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) written or compiled in the Land of Israel or in Babylonia from the Second Temple period until the early Middle Ages (late first millennium).

As translations, the targumim largely reflect rabbinic (i.e. midrashic) interpretation of the Tanakh. This is true both for those targumim that are fairly literal, as well as for those which contain a great many midrashic expansions.

Aramaic was the dominant language or lingua franca for hundreds of years in the major Jewish communities of the Land of Israel and Babylonia. To facilitate the study of Tanakh and make its public reading understood, authoritative translations were required.

Contents [hide]
1 The Two “Official” Targumim
2 Targum Ketuvim
3 Other Targumim on the Torah
4 The Peshitta
5 External links

[edit] The Two “Official” Targumim

11th century targum, perhaps from Tunisia, found in Kurdistan: part of the Schøyen Collection.The two most important targumim for liturgical purposes are:

Targum Onkelos on the Torah (The Law)
Targum Jonathan ben Uzziel on the Nevi'im (The Prophets)
These two targumim are mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud as targum didan (“our Targum”), giving them official status. In the synagogues of talmudic times, Targum Onkelos was read alternately with the Torah, verse by verse, and Targum Jonathan was read alternately with the selection from Nevi'im (i.e. the Haftarah). This custom continues today in Yemenite Jewish synagogues. The Yemenite Jews are the only Jewish community to continue the use of Targum as liturgical text, as well as to preserve a living tradition of pronunciation for the Aramaic of the targumim (according to a Babylonian dialect).

Besides its public function in the synagogue, the Talmud also mentions targum in the context of a personal study requirement: “A person should always review his portions of scripture along with the community, reading the scripture twice and the targum once” (Berakhot 8a-b). This too refers to Targum Onkelos on the public Torah reading and to Targum Jonathan on the haftarot from Nevi'im.

Medieval biblical manuscripts of the Tiberian mesorah sometimes contain the Hebrew text interpolated, verse-by-verse, with the official targumim. This scribal practice has its roots both in the public reading of the Targum and in the private study requirement.

The two “official” targumim are considered eastern (Babylonian). Nevertheless, scholars believe they too originated in the Land of Israel because of a strong linguistic substratum of western Aramaic. Though these targumim were later “easternized,” the substratum belying their origins still remains.

In post-talmudic times, when most Jewish communities had ceased speaking Aramaic, the public reading of Targum along with the Torah and Haftarah was abandoned in most communities. In Yemen, however, rather than abandoning the Aramaic targum during the public reading of the Torah, it was supplemented by a third version, namely the translation of the Torah into Arabic by Saadia Gaon (called the Tafsir). Thus, in Yemen each verse was read three times.

The private study requirement to review the Targum was never entirely relaxed, even when Jewish communities had largely ceased speaking Aramaic, and the Targum never ceased to be a major source for Jewish biblical exegesis. For instance, it serves as a major source in the Torah commentary of Rashi.

For these reasons, the Targum is still almost always printed alongside the text in Jewish editions of the Bible with commentaries. Nevertheless, later halakhic authorities argued that the requirement to privately review the targum might also be met by reading a translation in the current vernacular in place of the official Targum, or else by studying an important commentary containing midrashic interpretation (especially that of Rashi).

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