Targumic and Cognate Studies: Essays in Honour of Martin McNamara (JSOT Supplement)

257 Pages·1996·12.49 MB·English

by  Kevin J. Cathcart

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENTS ERIES
230
Editors
David J.A. Clines
Philip R. Davies
Executive Editor
John Jarick
Editorial Board
Robert P. Carroll, Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum,
John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald,
Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
Sheffield Academic Press
This page intentionally left blank
Targumic and Cognate
Studies
Essays in Honour of
Martin McNamara
edited by
Kevin J. Cathcart
and Michael Maher
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Supplement Series 230
Copyright © 1996 Sheffield Academic Press
Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd
Mansion House
19 Kingfield Road
Sheffield SI 19AS
England
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain
by Bookcraft Ltd
Midsomer Norton, Bath
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 1-85075-632-5
CONTENTS
Preface 7
Abbreviations 9
List of Contributors 11
Parti
TARGUMIC STUDIES
PHILIP S. ALEXANDER
The Song of Songs as Historical Allegory:
Notes on the Development of an Exegetical Tradition 14
LUIS DIEZ MERINO
Onomastica y Toponimia: Targum, Midras y Antiguo Testamento 30
BERNARD GROSSFELD
Tin ]H «^n - 'Finding Favor in Someone's Eyes': The Treatment
of this Biblical Hebrew Idiom in the Ancient Aramaic Versions 52
ROBERT HAYWARD
Shem, Melchizedek, and Concern with Christianity in the
Pentateuchal Targumim 67
MICHAEL MAKER
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of Exodus 2.21 81
CELINE MANGAN
The Attitude to Women in the Prologue of Targum Job 100
JOSEP RIBERA
The Image of Israel according to the Targum of Ezekiel 111
6 Targumic and Cognate Studies
AVIGDOR SHINAN
Post-Pentateuchal Figures in the Pentateuchal Aramaic
Targumim 122
Part II
ARAMAIC AND SYRIAC STUDIES
KEVIN J. CATHCART
The Curses in Old Aramaic Inscriptions 140
EDWARD M. COOK
Our Translated Tobit 153
ROBERT P. GORDON
Translational Features of the Peshitta in 1 Samuel 163
JOHN F. HEALEY
'May He be Remembered for Good': An Aramaic Formula 177
CARMEL MCCARTHY
Allusions and Illusions: St Ephrem's Verbal Magic in the
Diatessaron Commentary 187
EMILE PUECH
La Priere de Nabonide (4Q242) 208
A Bibliography of the Works of Martin McNamara
in Targumic and Biblical Studies 229
Index of References 234
Index of Authors 247
PREFACE
This collection of essays by a group of international scholars is intended
to pay fitting honour to Professor Martin McNamara, who celebrated
his sixty-fifth birthday in 1995. Although Martin McNamara has made
significant and innovative contributions in the field of Hiberno-Latin
studies, especially in research on the Apocrypha and the Psalms in the
early Irish Church, the present volume is intended to pay tribute to his
remarkable contribution to targumic studies over a period of almost forty
years.
When Martin McNamara was a student of theology in Rome in the
early 1950s, he happened to live in the same religious community as
Alejandro Diez Macho. Diez Macho was then making his initial study of
MS Neofiti 1, which he had discovered in the Vatican Library in 1949.
A few years later, when Fr McNamara was preparing his doctoral thesis,
Diez Macho supplied him with photocopies of the MS, and awoke in him
an interest in the targums. The friendship between Martin McNamara
and Alejandro Diez Macho lasted until the latter's death in 1984, and
the two scholars cooperated in several scholarly projects, notably in the
editing and translation of MS Neofiti 1.
Martin McNamara's doctoral thesis became The New Testament and
the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, which was published in 1966.
It gave a major boost to targumic studies in the Christian world, and
especially in the English-speaking world. As the list of Martin's works
which we include in this volume shows, he has continued since then to
produce important books and articles dealing with many aspects of
targumic and Aramaic studies.
Besides his prolific work as a writer, Martin McNamara has con-
tributed in many other ways to the advancement of targumic and biblical
scholarship. For a number of years he organized regular seminars on
targumic themes under the auspices of the Irish Biblical Association. In
1992 he organized the Targum conference at the Royal Irish Academy
in Dublin, which attracted Targum and Aramaic specialists from many
8 Targumic and Cognate Studies
centres of scholarship to the Irish capital. As a member of the Royal
Irish Academy, he has been the driving force behind the Academy's
committee on biblical and Near Eastern studies, and he has helped to
organize several international conferences in the Academy on various
aspects of biblical studies.
Martin McNamara has also been busy as an editor and has participated
in the production of several important series: he co-edited with the late
Carl Stuhlmueller the twenty-three volumes of the Old Testament
Message: A Biblical-Theological Commentary. The series The Aramaic
Bible, which is nearing completion, will be familiar to readers of this
volume.
The editors wish to express their thanks to all the scholars who agreed
to contribute to this work. Their readiness to do so was in itself a sign of
their esteem for the scholar whom we honour. As we present their work
to Fr McNamara, we offer him their congratulations and those of the
many other scholars who admire his work, and we wish him many more
fruitful years of scholarly involvement in the many areas in which he is
interested.
We wish to thank Sheffield Academic Press for accepting this volume
for publication, and we are indebted to Anne Spillane of the Department
of Near Eastern Languages, University College, Dublin, who prepared
most of the manuscript.
Kevin J. Cathcart
Michael Maher
ABBREVIATIONS
AB Anchor Bible
AnBib Analecta biblica
ANET J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 3rd edn
ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch
BA Biblical Archaeologist
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium
BHS Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia
Bib Biblica
BibOr Biblica et orientalia
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
CAD The Assyrian Dictionary, Chicago
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CCSL Corpus christianorum: series latina
CIS Corpus inscriptionum semiticarum
CSCO Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium
EBib Etudes bibliques
EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica
EstBib Estudios biblicos
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
ICC International Critical Commentary
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
ITQ Irish Theological Quarterly
JANES Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia
University
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JBLMS Journal of Biblical Literature, Monograph Series
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JSS Journal of Semitic Studies
JSSSup Journal of Semitic Studies, Supplements
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
KAI H. Donner and W. Rollig, Kanaandische und aramdische
Inschriften
NSI G A. Cooke, A Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions