understand. The earliest extant manuscripts are a Targum of Leviticus
(4QtgLev) from the late second or early first centuryb.c.e.and two of Job
(4QtgJob, 11QtgJob) from the middle of the first centuryc.e.Apart from
these Qumran texts, the witness of the Targums for text-critical purposes
is reduced, however, irrespective of the date when complete Targums of the
Torah and other books were finally written down, since all preserved
Targum texts have subsequently been revised to agree with an early precur-
sor of the Masoretic Text (MT). It is difficult to have confidence that any
specific readings provide premishnaic evidence.
Unlike the nebulous situation regarding early Aramaic translations,
the probability is strong that the Jewish community in Alexandria had
translated the Torah into Greek during the third centuryb.c.e.The leg-
endaryLetter of Aristeaselaborately narrates such an early translation,
though it is generally believed to have been written in support of a version
making claims for hegemony about a century later. Nevertheless, plausible
examples of quotations in the late third and the second centuryb.c.e.as
well as manuscript evidence make a third-century date for the translation
close to certain. Demetrius the Chronographer already in the late third
century quotes the Greek Genesis, and Eupolemus in the mid-second cen-
tury uses the Greek Chronicles, which probably means that the more im-
portant Prophets had already been translated as well. Moreover, in the last
third of the second century Ben Sira’s grandson translated his grandfa-
ther’s work and only casually mentions the translation of the Torah and
the Prophets and other books, which suggests that those translations were
not recent but had become widely known. Finally, the discovery of second-
century manuscripts of Greek Pentateuchal books both in Egypt and in
Palestine (already showing noticeable development) makes a third-
century translation probable. Again, this unprecedented fact of translation
may be a strong indicator that the Torah had become regarded as authori-
tative Scripture.The Value of the Early Versions
The Targums generally do not help penetrate to ancient forms of the text
other than those inherited in the MT collection. The Old Greek (OG)
translation, on the other hand, provides for many books an invaluable wit-
ness to Second Temple textual forms that have otherwise perished.
Whereas prior to the middle of the twentieth century the value of the LXX128eugene ulrichEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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