Zen Garcia

Aramaic and Palestinian Targums

Targum meaning translation references the various language transliterations of the original Hebrew Torah, which were commissioned created by Temple elders. The Aramaic and Palestinian versions printed here are acknowledged to be the oldest and most widely used renderings of the ancient language translations of the original Hebrew Torah. Though they are accepted to date back to at least the first century CE, I believe them to be half a millennia older as they first came into being to accommodate the Israelites assimilation of Aramaic when exiled to Babylon in 597 BCE. It was during the 70 years of that diaspora that Aramaic became the predominant colloquial language and accepted vernacular of use by the Hebraic peoples. During this 70 years of assimilation, the Israelite's use of Hebrew as lexicon dwindled from being the primary dialect of everyday conversation, to being one of mostly scholastic application utilized intellectually by the priestly class.