Publisher's Synopsis
Targum Onkelos, a sixteen hundred-year-old Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch, to this day, is universally recognized as the most important translation of the Bible ever made. In fact, the Talmud promises that fulfilling the rabbinic tradition of shnayim mikra v echad Targum, studying the weekly Torah portion twice in the original and once with Onkelos, lengthens the days and years of all who fulfill this enriching mandate. It was with this in mind that veteran Bible scholars and teachers Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin and Rabbi Dr. Stanley M. Wagner, zl, and published a five-volume English translation of Targum Onkelos together with a running English commentary, entitled Onkelos on the Torah: Understanding the Bible Text (Gefen Publishing House, 2005 2012). This seminal work made the Aramaic text of Onkelos accessible to an English-speaking audience for the first time.
Now Rabbis Drazin and Wagner have done the same for a Hebrew-speaking audience. Iyunim B Targum, translated from the English by Yehoshua Rabinowitz, is a Hebrew edition of the previously published Understanding Onkelos: The Greatest Bible Translator(Targum, 2012), a companion volume to Onkelos on the Torah that focuses on the methodology of Targum Onkelos, explaining how its author treated depictions of God (especially the anthropomorphisms), negative portrayals of Israelite ancestors, obscure biblical phrases, and much more. It deepens the reader's understanding of the Torah as the talmudic rabbis and codifiers who extolled Onkelos wanted the Torah to be understood.
