THE SOURCES	25
when Cyrus, King of Persia, allowed the Jews to return to
Palestine and set about reorganizing their religious life, they
had to appoint in each synagogue an official called a targoman
(cf. the dragoman of our embassies and legations in the Near
East), whose duty it was to give a rendering, in the vulgar
tongue, of the Scriptures which were read aloud in Hebrew.
For a long while these translations remained oral and individual,
the targoman improvising, or appearing to do so, as he read;
but gradually they became crystallized into a fixed version.
The practice was then extended from the Torah (the Law) to
the Nebiim (the Prophets), and at last even to the Keihubim
(the Sacred Writings), though this final development took place
too late to concern us here.
The earliest references to written Tar gums take us back to
the third century b.c. ; but nothing is left of these ancient
documents. We have a Tar gum on the Pentateuch, known as
the Targum of Onkelos, from the name of a Scribe who was
supposed to have been a pupil of the Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder
(about a.d. 70). Actually Onkelos was not the author but
merely the compiler of the work, which probably dates from
about the middle of the first century a.d., though some critics
put him as late as the first half of the second century, making
him contemporary with Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua. He
made use of earlier Targums. The theory is that the book,
originally compiled in Palestine, was re-edited later in Babylon,
which accounts for its being sometimes referred to as the Targum
Babli. The Babylonian Talmud makes use of it. For us its
special value is in reference to post-exilic exegesis and theology.
Specially noteworthy is its evident desire to get rid of the
anthropomorphism of the Bible narrative and to emphasize
the transcendence of God.^1
The Jerusalem Targum (Yerushalmi) is also on the Penta-
teuch and has come down to us in two editions, one complete,
the other abridged. The former is known as the Targum of
Pseudo-Jonathan^2 and may perhaps be assigned, though not
with certainty, to the first decades of the first century. The
other is not earlier than the seventh century, since it gives the
names of a wife and a daughter of Mahomet.
For the Prophets we have a Targum of Jonathan, the date
of which seems rather less uncertain; but it is rather a para-
phrase of the original than a genuine translation. Ezra,
^1	Characteristic examples illustrating these tendencies in CCXGIX, 46.
^2	The reference is to Jonathan ben Uzziel, said to have been a pupil
of BOHel's, but the work has long ceased to be attributed to him.    Cf.
LXXV, i, 151.