Targum Lamentations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The targum, written in Galilean Aramaic, must have come from Galilee (northern Israel). The work was written in a learned rabbinic environment and written for a popular audience. It advocates rabbinic values and is similar to Lamentations Rabbah (5th century).[4]
The targum dates to 5th or early 6th century.[2][3] The targum is pre-Islamic: it addresses a world dominated by the Roman and Persian world superpowers, placing it before the Muslim conquests of the early seventh century, which brought an end to the Persian Empire. It was written in Galilean Aramaic, a dialect not used in Islamic times. It knows of Constantinople as the capital of the Roman Empire, placing it after 324 CE, which is when Constantinople became the capital. The targum also knows of the city of Rome as a second, contemporary, flourishing, and prosperous capital of the empire. However, the city of Rome was thoroughly in the fifth century: by the Sack of Rome by the Visigots (410), the Sack of Rome by the Vandals (455), and the ultimate capture of Rome by the "barbarian" Odoacer in 476, causing the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. The authors representation of Rome, in his own time, as a prosperous city of the Romans, then, could not date very long after these events. At the very most, the text could be written soon after 500 CE (early sixth century).[2]
