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