The Targum Onkelos

According to Wikipedia’s article Targum Onkelos, although authorship  is often attributed to ‘Onkelos’, many scholars believe it was Aquila of Sinope, who made the Greek translation before he converted to Judaism, then wrote the aramaic translation called the Targum Onkelos in the 1^st century or early in the 2^nd century, under the direction of Rabbis Yehoshua and Eliezer.  Some of the language dates to the late 4^th and early 5^th centuries, because it underwent “its final redaction” at that time.

The article states the “Onkelos’ Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch (Five Books of Moses) is almost entirely a word-by-word, literal translation of the Hebrew Masoretic Text”.  A strange way of stating the relationship between the text since the Onkelos was written centuries before the Masoretic text.  The Targum Onkelos contains supplemental material in the form of aggadic (non-legalistic exegesis) paraphrase to minimize ambiquities and obscurities, usually where the original Hebrew contained an idiom, homonym or metaphor which could not be understood otherwise.  For example, the translator replaced ‘human-like’ characteristics of God, for example “my face” is replaced with “from before me” in Ex 33:23, and “beneath his feet” is replaced by “under his throne of glory” in Ex 24:10, but as we have discovered in our word studies to-date, the Hebrew text has a broader meaning that is deficient in English translations. 

The article lists 25 “more notable changes”, of which the 4 below impact our study of Gen 1 – 3:

• Genesis 1:2 Aramaic: וְאַרְעָא הֲוָת צָדְיָא וְרֵיקָנְיָא, in Hebrew characters [= “…and the earth was devastated and empty”], instead of “…and the earth was without form and void.”
• Genesis 2:7 Aramaic: הות באדם לְרוּחַ מְמַלְלָא, in Hebrew characters [= “…and it became in man a speaking spirit”], instead of “…and man became a living soul.”
• Genesis 3:5 Aramaic: וּתְהוֹן כְּרַבְרְבִין, in Hebrew characters [= “…and you shall be like potentates”], instead of “…and you shall be like gods.”  Explained in Reference 25 “The literal words used in the Hebrew text are: ‘and you shall be like elohim.’ The word elohim, however, is a Hebrew homonym, having multiple meanings. It can mean either God, angels, judges, potentates (in the sense of ‘rulers’ or ‘princes’), nobles, and gods (in the lower case). In most English translations of Genesis 3:5 it is rendered as “gods’ (in the lower case), and which, according to Onkelos, is a mistranslation and should be translated as ‘potentates’.”
• Genesis 3:15 Aramaic: הוּא יְהִי דְּכִיר מָה דַּעֲבַדְתְּ לֵיהּ מִלְּקדְמִין וְאַתּ תְּהֵי נָטַר לֵיהּ לְסוֹפָא, in Hebrew characters [=”…he (i.e. Eve’s offspring) shall remember what you (i.e. the serpent) did to him at the beginning, but you (i.e. the serpent) shall hold it against him at the end”], instead of “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

The change to Gen 1:2 and many others are mentioned in the Raymond Apple’s Book Review of Onkelos on the Torah: Understanding the Bible Text in the Jewish Bible Quarterly.  In Gen 1:14 ‘for ancient days’ becomes ‘for counting days and years’.  Apple discusses at great length the fact that throughout the Pentateuch, elohim is changed to YHVH, with the exception of Gen 1:27 where the phrase “in the image of God” was too well known to be altered, and where a pronoun is attached to elohim, such as ‘our God’. 

We see in the explanation of the rabbinic exegesis about the two names of God, their lack of understanding of the Messiah’s position in the God head from the beginning of time, which they change to suit their doctrine.  Anthropomorphisms are avoided by replacing “God did” with “the word or glory of God did”, and passive “it was done before God”, except in Gen 1:26 it is left as “let us make man in our image”, again because this verse is too well known.   Unfortunately, what resulted was an inconsistent mix of redaction for similar words, making the Targum Onkelos a translation of questionable value.