This series represents the first time all the extant targums will have been translated into English. Scholars of both Jewish and Christian communities of the English-speaking world have given a warm welcome to the series, which is filling a large gap in the body of targums available in English.
While any translation of the Scriptures may in Hebrew be called a targum, the word is used especially for a translation of a book of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic. Before the Christian era, Aramaic had in good part replaced Hebrew in Palestine as the vernacular of the Jews. It continued as their vernacular for centuries later and remained in part as the language of the schools after Aramaic itself had been replaced as the vernacular. The Aramaic Bible series provides a much-needed reference to the Aramaic translation of the Torah and Old Testament texts, as well as an important glimpse into Second Temple Judaism.
