David Shepherd, «The Case of The Targum of Job in the Rabbinic Bible and the Solger Codex (MS Nürnberg)», Vol. 79 (1998) 360-380

It is a well-known fact that even in its earliest edition, an Aramaic translation or targum was amongst the vast and varied material assembled for inclusion in the Rabbinic Bible. But in contrast to the comparative wealth of information we possess regarding the circumstances surrounding its publication, we possess little knowledge with regard to the sources used by Felix de Prato when he took up the task of editing the 1517 Rabbinic Bible for the Venetian publisher Daniel Bomberg. While prior research has shown the importance of the targum text preserved in the Solger Codex (Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg) in any attempt to solve the puzzle of the pre-history of the Rabbinic Bible's targum text, many pieces of this puzzle remain as yet unexamined. The present study locates the targum text preserved in MS Nürnberg (Solger Codex) within the stemmatological framework proposed by D. Stec in the introduction to his critical edition of the Targum of Job. More importantly, the present paper presents decisive evidence (through the detection of editorial errors) that the editor of the first Rabbinic Bible (Felix de Prato) copied his targum text of Job directly from Codex Solger preserved in the Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg.

unattested readings shared by the two witnesses (as illustrated by the preceding chart) suggests a high degree of affinity. In the introduction to his critical translation of the targumim of Esther, Bernard Grossfeld provides some statistical support for his contention that Nürnberg's targum text was used by de Prato as the Vorlage for his own text ²⁷. He finds that in 294 out of 553 cases with respect to Tg. Sheni, the Second Rabbinic Bible agrees with Nürnberg. While there are minor differences between the edition of de Prato and that of Ben Hayyim which followed some eight years later, Grossfeld argues that a 54% agreement between the two "points strongly to a possible situation" that Nürnberg was used by de Prato.

      Beattie too, in a paper on the textual tradition of Targum Ruth given in Dublin six years ago, presents evidence of this sort under two headings. First, he identified features characteristic of the printed texts ²⁸ which are found only in Nürnberg as opposed to all the other MSS he had examined. Then he reversed the procedure and found that most of the features (including additions, omissions and shared readings) unique to Nürnberg among the MSS were to be found in the printed texts. In the light of these significant correlations in the case of Ruth and Esther, it is not surprising that our piece of the puzzle — the Targum of Job, shows a similarly high degree of correspondence. While this sort of evidence may be both salient and suggestive, it is (as Beattie and presumably Grossfeld recognize), far from decisive in terms of showing the dependence of Bomberg on Nürnberg ²⁹.

Multiple Targumim ³⁰

      For the purposes of this enquiry, it is a happy coincidence that in the case of many verses, phrases and even individual words, the