TARGUMS

   translations, dating for the most part as early as the time of Ezra, of several books of the Old Testament into Aramaic, which both in Babylonia and Palestine had become the spoken language of the Jews instead of Hebrew, executed chiefly for the service of the Synagogue; they were more or less of a paraphrastic nature, and were accompanied with comments and instances in illustration; they were delivered at first orally and then handed down by tradition, which did not improve them. One of them, on the Pentateuch, bears the name of Onkelos, who sat at the feet of Gamaliel along with St. Paul, and another the name of Jonathan, in the historical and prophetical books, though there are others, the Jerusalem Targum and the Pseudo-Jonathan, which are of an inferior stamp and surcharged with fancies similar to those in the TALMUD (q.v.).