74-426: Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation . Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy . Cantillation includes: This religion -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hebrew cantillation Hebrew cantillation , trope , trop , or te'amim
148-408: A conjunctive , joining the two words (like a slur in music). Thus, disjunctives divide a verse into phrases, and within each phrase all the words except the last carry conjunctives. (There are two types of exception to the rule about words having only one sign. A group of words joined by hyphens is regarded as one word so they only have one accent between them. Conversely, a long word may have two—e.g.,
222-485: A chant to Biblical readings. This chant is technically regarded as a ritualized form of speech intonation rather than as a musical exercise like the singing of metrical hymns: for this reason Jews always speak of saying or reading a passage rather than of singing it. (In Yiddish the word is leynen 'read', derived from Latin legere , giving rise to the Jewish English verb "to leyn".) The musical value of
296-557: A college for converts from Judaism and Islam, until 1886, when the Holy See bought it along with other manuscripts when the Collegium closed (which is the reason for the manuscripts name and its designation). It was then mistitled as a manuscript of Targum Onkelos until 1949, when Alejandro Díez Macho noticed that it differed significantly from Targum Onkelos. It was translated and published during 1968–79, and has since been considered
370-452: A disjunctive on the stressed syllable and the related conjunctive two syllables before in place of meteg .) The disjunctives are traditionally divided into four levels, with lower level disjunctives marking less important breaks. The general conjunctive is munach . Depending on which disjunctive follows, this may be replaced by mercha , mahpach , darga , qadma , telisha qetannah or yerach ben yomo . One other symbol
444-529: A kind of sermon . Writing down the targum was initially prohibited; nevertheless, some targumitic writings appeared as early as the middle of the first century . They were not recognized as authoritative by the religious leaders. Some subsequent Jewish traditions, beginning with the Jews of Lower Mesopotamia , accepted the written targumim as authoritative translations of the Hebrew scriptures into Aramaic. Today,
518-572: A later hand. In general, it may be observed that the Jerusalem and Tiberian systems are far more closely related to each other than either is to the Babylonian. This system of phrasing is reflected in the Sephardic cantillation modes, in which the conjunctives (and to some extent the "near companions" such as tifcha , pashta and zarqa ) are rendered as flourishes leading into the motif of
592-595: A major source in Shlomo Yitzhaki's Torah commentary, " Rashi ," and has always been the standard fare for Ashkenazi Jews onward. For these reasons, Jewish editions of the Tanakh which include commentaries still almost always print the Targum alongside the text, in all Jewish communities. Nevertheless, later halakhic authorities argued that the requirement to privately review the targum might also be met by reading
666-555: A person making hand signals to the reader to show the tune, as in the Byzantine system of neumes . This system of cheironomy survives in some communities to the present day, notably in Italy . It is speculated that both the shapes and the names of some of the accents (e.g. tifcha , literally "hand-breadth") may refer to the hand signals rather than to the syntactical functions or melodies denoted by them. Today in most communities there
740-639: A single family. For example, in these traditions the Torah reading is always or almost always in Maqam Sigah . There are some variations, among individual readers as well as among communities: for example the Egyptian melody is related to the more elaborate and cantorial form of the Syrian melody and was transitioning toward Maqam Huzzam before the mass expulsion in 1950. The Karaite tradition, being based on
814-410: A symbol on each word, to replace the fragmentary systems previously in use. In particular, it was necessary to invent a range of different conjunctive accents to show how to introduce and elaborate the main motif in longer phrases. (For example, tevir is preceded by mercha , a short flourish, in shorter phrases but by darga , a more elaborate run of notes, in longer phrases.) The system they devised
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#1732791065584888-413: A translation in the current vernacular in place of the official Targum, or else by studying an important commentary containing midrashic interpretation (especially that of Rashi). The Talmud explicitly states that no official targumim were composed besides these two on Torah and Nevi'im alone, and that there is no official targum to Ketuvim ("The Writings"). The Talmud stories state: The Targum of
962-416: A unit, as are the targumim of the five scrolls (Esther has a longer " Second Targum " as well.) The targum of Chronicles is quite late, possibly medieval. It is traditionally attributed to "Rav Yosef" (meaning either Rav Yosef or Rav Yosef bar Hama ). (The targum to Neviim is also sometimes referred to as the targum of Rav Yosef. ) There are also a variety of western targumim on the Torah, each of which
1036-477: Is mercha kefulah , double mercha. There is some argument about whether this is another conjunctive or an occasional replacement for tevir . Disjunctives have a function somewhat similar to punctuation in Western languages. Sof pasuk could be thought of as a full stop, atnach as a semi-colon, second level disjunctives as commas and third level disjunctives as commas or unmarked. Where two words are written in
1110-517: Is I who have revealed Thy secrets to mankind. It is fully known to Thee that I have not done this for my own honour or for the honour of my father's house, but for Thy honour I have done it, that dissension may not increase in Israel." He further sought to reveal [by] a targum [the inner meaning] of Ketuvim, but a Bath Kol went forth and said, "Enough!" What was the reason? Because the date of the Messiah
1184-548: Is also used for some other words and passages which it is desired to emphasize. Other communities, such as the Syrian Jews, observe the differences between the two sets of cantillation marks for the Ten Commandments but have no special melody for ta'am 'elyon . There is no special tune for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in any Sephardic tradition. As with Ashkenazim, the normal musical value of cantillation signs
1258-486: Is correctly labeled as Targum Yerushalmi . The Western Targumim on the Torah, or Palestinian Targumim as they are also called, consist of three manuscript groups: Targum Neofiti I, Fragment Targums, and Cairo Geniza Fragment Targums. Of these Targum Neofiti I is the largest. It consist of 450 folios covering all books of the Pentateuch, with only a few damaged verses. The history of the manuscript begins 1587 when
1332-564: Is foretold in it. Nevertheless, most books of Ketuvim (with the exceptions of Daniel and Ezra-Nehemiah, which both contain Aramaic portions) have targumim , whose origin is mostly Palestinian rather than Mesopotamian. But they were poorly preserved and less well known for lack of a fixed place in the liturgy. From Palestine, the tradition of targum to Ketuvim made its way to Italy, and from there to medieval Ashkenaz and Sepharad . The targumim of Psalms, Proverbs, and Job are generally treated as
1406-461: Is generally performed by a young boy. Conversely, the Syrian community knows two types of Torah cantillation, a simpler one for general use and a more elaborate one used by professional hazzanim . It is probable that the simpler melody was originally a teaching mode. Today however it is the mode in general use, and is also an ancestor of the "Jerusalem-Sephardic" melody. Some communities, such as
1480-527: Is generally the "default" tune for any book of the Ketuvim (Hagiographa) that does not have a tune of its own. Unlike the Ashkenazic tradition, the eastern traditions, in particular that of the Syrian Jews, include melodies for the special cantillation of Psalms, Proverbs and the poetic parts of Job. In many eastern communities, Proverbs is read on the six Sabbaths between Passover and Shavuot , Job on
1554-486: Is no system of hand signals and the reader learns the melody of each reading in advance. The Tiberian system spread quickly and was accepted in all communities by the 13th century. Each community re-interpreted its reading tradition so as to allocate one short musical motif to each symbol: this process has gone furthest in the Western Ashkenazi and Ottoman (Jerusalem-Sephardi, Syrian etc.) traditions. Learning
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#17327910655841628-469: Is replaced by a "coda" motif at the end of each Torah reading and of each haftarah verse (though there is no special coda for the end of the haftarah), suggesting a common origin for the Sephardi and Ashkenazi chants. Eastern Jewish communities have no liturgical tradition of reading Ecclesiastes, and there is no public liturgical reading of Song of Songs on Passover, though brief extracts may be read after
1702-804: Is the manner of chanting ritual readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services . The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic Text of the Bible, to complement the letters and vowel points . These marks are known in English as 'accents' ( diacritics ), 'notes' or trope symbols , and in Hebrew as taʿamei ha-mikra ( טעמי המקרא ) or just teʿamim ( טעמים ). Some of these signs were also sometimes used in medieval manuscripts of
1776-526: Is the one in use today, and is found in Biblical manuscripts such as the Aleppo Codex . A Masoretic treatise called Diqduqe ha-teʿamim (precise rules of the accents) by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher survives, though both the names and the classification of the accents differ somewhat from those of the present day. As the accents were (and are) not shown on a Torah scroll, it was found necessary to have
1850-661: Is used in manuscripts of the Qur'an to guide the reader in fitting the chant to the verse: see Qur'an reading .) This system is reflected in the cantillation practices of the Yemenite Jews , who now use the Tiberian symbols, but tend to have musical motifs only for the disjunctives and render the conjunctives in a monotone. It is notable that the Yemenite Jews have only eight disjunctive motifs, thus clearly reflecting
1924-549: The Geonic period contain no cantillation marks in the current sense, but small Hebrew letters are used to mark significant divisions within a verse. Up to eight different letters are found, depending on the importance of the break and where it occurs in the verse: these correspond roughly to the disjunctives of the Tiberian system. For example, in some manuscripts the letter tav , for tevir (break), does duty for both Tiberian tevir and zaqef . In general there are no symbols for
1998-549: The Hebrew block. The names of some of the cantillation signs differ in the Ashkenazi , Sephardi , Italian and Yemenite traditions; for example Sephardim use qadma to mean what Ashkenazim call pashta , and azla to mean what Ashkenazim call qadma . In this article, as in almost all Hebrew grammars, the Ashkenazi terminology is used. The names in other traditions are shown in the table below . A primary purpose of
2072-517: The Mishnah . The musical motifs associated with the signs are known in Hebrew as niggun or neginot (not to be confused with Hasidic nigun ) and in Yiddish as trop ( טראָפ ): the word trope is sometimes used in Jewish English with the same meaning. There are multiple traditions of cantillation. Within each tradition, there are multiple tropes, typically for different books of
2146-508: The Ninth of Av , and Psalms are read on a great many occasions. The cantillation melody for Psalms can also vary depending on the occasion. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews have no tradition for the rendering of the Psalms according to the cantillation marks, but the melody used for several psalms in the evening service is noticeably similar to that of Syrian psalm cantillation, and may represent
2220-508: The Tanakh . One is used in the twenty-one prose books, while the other appears in the three poetical books of Psalms , Proverbs and Job . Except where otherwise stated, this article describes the "prose" system. The current system of cantillation notes has its historical roots in the Tiberian masorah . The cantillation signs are included in Unicode as characters U+0591 through U+05AF in
2294-485: The construct state (for example, pene ha-mayim , "the face of the waters"), the first noun ( nomen regens ) invariably carries a conjunctive. The cantillation signs are often an important aid in the interpretation of a passage. For example, the words qol qore bamidbar panu derekh YHWH ( Isaiah 40:3 ) is translated in the Authorised Version as "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye
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2368-405: The tifcha-etnachta , zarqa-segolta and pashta-zaqef sequences, with or without intervening unaccented words. These sequences are generally linked by a series of dots, beginning or ending with a dash or a dot in a different place to show which sequence is meant. Unaccented words (which in the Tiberian system carry conjunctives) are generally shown by a dot following the word, as if to link it to
2442-399: The 10th century, the public reading of Targum, along with the Torah and Haftarah, was abandoned in most communities, Yemen being a well-known exception. The private study requirement to review the Targum was never entirely relaxed, even when Jewish communities had largely ceased speaking Aramaic, and the Targum never ceased to be a major source for Jewish exegesis . For instance, it serves as
2516-502: The Ashkenazic musical tradition for Te'raim, each of the local geographical customs includes a total of six major and numerous minor separate melodies for Tera'im: The Ashkenazic tradition preserves no melody for the special cantillation notes of Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, which were not publicly read in the synagogue by European Jews. However, the Ashkenazic yeshiva known as Aderet Eliyahu , or (more informally) Zilberman's , in
2590-509: The Babylonian notation. The same is true of the Karaite mode for the haftarah; while in the Sephardi haftarah modes different disjunctives often have the same or closely similar motifs, reducing the total number of effective motifs to something like the same number. The Babylonian system, as mentioned above, is mainly concerned with showing breaks in the verse. Early manuscripts, by contrast, are mainly concerned with showing phrases: for example
2664-404: The Bible and often for different occasions. For example, different chants may be used for Torah readings on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur than for the same text on a normal Shabbat. Three systems of Hebrew punctuation (including vowels and cantillation symbols) have been used: the Babylonian, the Jerusalem, and the Tiberian, only the last of which is used today. Babylonian Biblical manuscripts from
2738-408: The Bible. The music varies with different Jewish traditions and individual cantorial styles. The cantillation signs also provide information on the syntactical structure of the text and some say they are a commentary on the text itself, highlighting important ideas musically. The tropes are not random strings but follow a set and describable grammar. The very word ta'am , used in Hebrew to refer to
2812-513: The Egyptian, also forms part of this group. Another recognisable family consists of the Iraqi (Mosul and Iraqi diaspora), Spanish-Moroccan and Spanish and Portuguese melodies. The probable reason for the occurrence of similar melodies at opposite ends of the Arab world is that they represent the remains of an old Arab-Jewish tradition not overlaid by the later Ottoman-Sephardic tradition that spread to
2886-551: The Old City of Jerusalem, uses an adaptation of the Syrian cantillation-melody for these books, and this is becoming more popular among other Ashkenazim as well. At the beginning of the twentieth century there was a single Ottoman-Sephardic tradition (no doubt with local variations) covering Turkey, Syria, Israel and Egypt. Today the Jerusalem-Sephardic, Syrian, Egyptian and Baghdadi melodies recognisably belong to
2960-534: The Pentateuch was composed by Onkelos the proselyte from the mouths of R. Eleazar and R. Joshua. The Targum of the Prophets was composed by Jonathan ben Uzziel under the guidance of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and the land of Israel [thereupon] quaked over an area of four hundred parasangs by four hundred parasangs, and a Bath Kol (heavenly voice) came forth and exclaimed, "Who is this that has revealed My secrets to mankind?" Jonathan b. Uzziel arose and said, "It
3034-626: The Perplexed . That is true both for those targums that are fairly literal as well as for those that contain many midrashic expansions. In 1541, Elia Levita wrote and published the Sefer Meturgeman, explaining all the Aramaic words found in the Targums Onqelos , Jonathan , and pseudo-Jonathan . Targumim are used today as sources in text-critical editions of the Bible ( Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia refers to them with
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3108-578: The Portuguese community of Amsterdam, have a simplified melody for the Prophets for study purposes, distinct from that used in reading the Haftarah : the distinction is mentioned in one medieval Sephardic source. The following table shows the names of the te'amim in the Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Italian traditions together with their Unicode symbols. The following additional symbols are found in
3182-581: The Torah, used in teaching it to children, as distinct from the mode used in synagogue. (This should not be confused with the lernen steiger used for studying the Mishnah and Talmud.) For example, the Yemenite community teaches a simplified melody for children, to be used both in school and when they are called to read the sixth aliyah. The simplified melody is also used for the reading of the Targum , which
3256-506: The abbreviation 𝔗 ). The noun "Targum" is derived from the early semitic quadriliteral root תרגם ( trgm ), and the Akkadian term targummanu refers to "translator, interpreter". It occurs in Ezra 4 :7 "a letter written in Aramaic and translated." Besides denoting the translations of the Bible, "targum" also denoted the oral rendering of Bible lections in synagogue , while
3330-614: The accents and their musical rendition is now an important part of the preparations for a bar mitzvah , as this is the first occasion on which a person reads from the Torah in public. In the early period of the Reform movement there was a move to abandon the system of cantillation and give Scriptural readings in normal speech (in Hebrew or in the vernacular). In recent decades, however, traditional cantillation has been restored in many communities. There are two systems of cantillation marks in
3404-417: The cantillation marks, literally means "taste" or "sense", the point being that the pauses and intonation denoted by the accents (with or without formal musical rendition) bring out the sense of the passage. The cantillation signs serve three functions: In general, each word in the Tanakh has one cantillation sign. This may be either a disjunctive , showing a division between that and the following word, or
3478-474: The cantillation signs is to guide the chanting of the sacred texts during public worship. Very roughly speaking, each word of text has a cantillation mark at its primary accent and associated with that mark is a musical phrase that tells how to sing that word. The reality is more complex, with some words having two or no marks and the musical meaning of some marks dependent upon context. There are different sets of musical phrases associated with different sections of
3552-471: The cantillation signs serves the same function for Jews worldwide, but the specific tunes vary between different communities. The most common tunes today are as follows. There has been an attempted reconstruction of the original melody by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura , on the basis of the shapes and positions of the marks and without any reference to existing melodies, as described in her book La musique de la Bible révélée and her records. That reconstruction assumes
3626-522: The censor Andrea de Monte (d. 1587) bequeathed it to Ugo Boncompagni—which presents an oddity, since Boncompagni, better known as Pope Gregory XIII , died in 1585. The transmission route may instead be by a certain "Giovan Paolo Eustachio romano neophito." Before this de Monte had censored it by deleting most references to idolatry. In 1602 Boncompagni's estate gave it to the College of the Neophytes ,
3700-411: The chant was given over orally(mesora) in use in medieval Palestine had clearly become more complex, both because of the existence of pazer , geresh and telisha motifs in longer verses and because the realization of a phrase ending with a given type of break varied according to the number of words and syllables in the phrase. The Tiberian Masoretes therefore developed a comprehensive notation with
3774-455: The common meaning of targum is a written Aramaic translation of the Bible. Only Yemenite Jews continue to use the targumim liturgically. As translations, the targumim largely reflect midrashic interpretation of the Tanakh from the time they were written and are notable for favoring allegorical readings over anthropomorphisms . Maimonides , for one, notes this often in The Guide for
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#17327910655843848-410: The community, reading the scripture twice and the targum once" (Berakhot 8a–b). This, too, refers to Targum Onkelos on the public Torah reading and to Targum Jonathan on the haftarot from Nevi'im. Medieval biblical manuscripts of the Masoretic Text sometimes contain the Hebrew text interpolated, verse-by-verse, with the targumim . This scribal practice is rooted in the public reading of the Targum and
3922-425: The conjunctives, though some late manuscripts use the Tiberian symbols for these. There is also no equivalent for low-grade disjunctives such as telisha gedolah : these are generally replaced by the equivalent of zaqef or revia . Nothing is known of the musical realization of these marks, but it seems likely that they represent breaks or variations in a set melody applied to each verse. (A somewhat similar system
3996-407: The consonant of the stressed syllable of a word. This also shows where the most important note of the musical motif should go. A few signs always go on the first or last consonant of a word. This may have been for musical reasons, or it may be to distinguish them from other accents of similar shape. For example, pashta , which goes on the last consonant, otherwise looks like kadma , which goes on
4070-513: The correct Targum Yerushalmi (תרגום ירושלמי). Scholars refer to this targum as Targum Pseudo-Jonathan . To attribute this targum to Jonathan ben Uzziel flatly contradicts the Talmudic tradition (Megillah 3a), which quite clearly attributes the targum to Nevi'im alone to him, while stating that there is no official targum to the Ketuvim. In the same printed versions, a similar fragment targum
4144-708: The countries in between. There may also have been some convergence between the London Spanish and Portuguese and Iraqi melodies during British rule in India and the British Mandate of Mesopotamia . The Jews of North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Yemen all had local musical traditions for cantillation. When these Jewish communities emigrated (mostly to Israel) during the twentieth century, they brought their musical traditions with them. But as
4218-478: The following disjunctive rather than as motifs in their own right. The somewhat inconsistent use of dots above and below the words as disjunctives is closely similar to that found in Syriac texts. Kahle also notes some similarity with the punctuation of Samaritan Hebrew . By the tenth century CE, the symbols (note: the chant existed since the giving of the Torah, the symbols were developed over time. Before than
4292-468: The following word. There are separate symbols for more elaborate tropes like pazer and telisha gedolah . The manuscripts are extremely fragmentary, no two of them following quite the same conventions, and these marks may represent the individual reader's aide-memoire rather than a formal system of punctuation (for example, vowel signs are often used only where the word would otherwise be ambiguous). In one manuscript, presumably of somewhat later date than
4366-465: The immigrants themselves grew older, many particular national melodies began to be forgotten, or to become assimilated into the "Jerusalem Sephardic" melting-pot. As with the Ashkenazim, there is one tune for Torah readings and a different tune for haftarot. Spanish and Portuguese Jews have a special tune for the Ten Commandments when read according to the ta'am elyon , known as "High Na'um", which
4440-473: The morning service during the first half of Nisan. (Individuals may read it after the Passover Seder, and many communities recite it every Friday night.) There are specialized tunes for Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther and Lamentations. The prose passages at the beginning and end of the book of Job may be read either to the tune of Song of Songs or to that of Ruth, depending on the community. The Ruth tune
4514-548: The most important of the Palestinian Targumim, as it is by far the most complete and, apparently, the earliest as well. The Fragment Targums (formerly known as Targum Yerushalmi II) consist of fragments divided into ten manuscripts. Of these P, V and L were first published in 1899 by M Ginsburger, A, B, C, D, F and G in 1930 by P Kahle and E in 1955 by A Díez Macho. These manuscripts are all too fragmented to confirm what their purpose was, but they seem to be either
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#17327910655844588-647: The oldest among the Palestinian Targum and have been dated to around the seventh century. Manuscripts C, E, H and Z contain only passages from Genesis, A from Exodus while MS B contain verses from both as well as from Deuteronomium. The Samaritan community has their own Targum to their text of the Torah. Other Targumim were also discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Peshitta is the traditional Bible of Syriac Christians , who speak several different dialects of Aramaic. The translation of
4662-414: The others, there are separate marks for different conjunctives, actually outnumbering those in the Tiberian system (for example, munach before etnachta has a different sign from munach before zaqef ), and the overall system approaches the Tiberian in comprehensiveness. In some other manuscripts, in particular those containing Targumim rather than original text, the Tiberian symbols have been added by
4736-698: The remains of a single complete targum or short variant readings of another targum. As a group, they often share theological views and with Targum Neofiti, which has led to the belief that they could be variant readings of that targum. The Cairo Geniza Fragment Targums originate from the Ben Ezra Synagogue's genizah in Cairo. They share similarities with the Fragment Targums in that they consist of many fragmented manuscripts that have been collected in one targum-group. The manuscripts A and E are
4810-464: The remnants of such a tradition. Yemenite cantillation has a total of eight distinctive motifs, falling within four main patterns: This is true equally of the system used for the Torah and the systems used for the other books. It appears to be a relic of the Babylonian system , which also recognised only eight types of disjunctive and no conjunctives. Some communities had a simplified melody for
4884-490: The requirement for private study. The two "official" targumim are considered eastern (Mesopotamian, called "Babylonian"). Nevertheless, scholars believe they, too, originated in Syria Palestina because of a strong linguistic substratum of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic . Though these targumim were later "orientalised", the substratum belying their origins remains. When most Jewish communities ceased speaking Aramaic in
4958-438: The signs represent the degrees of various musical scales, that is individual notes, which puts it at odds with all existing traditions where the signs invariably represent melodic motives. Some musicologists have rejected her results as dubious and her methodology as flawed. A similar reconstructive proposal was developed by American composer and pianist Jeffrey Burns [ de ] and posthumously published in 2011. In
5032-415: The stressed syllable. Some signs are written (and sung) differently when the word is not stressed on its last syllable. Pashta on a word of this kind is doubled, one going on the stressed syllable and the other on the last consonant. Geresh is doubled unless it occurs on a non-finally-stressed word or follows kadma (to form the kadma ve-azla phrase). Cantillation signs guide the reader in applying
5106-596: The synagogues of Talmudic times, Targum Onkelos was read alternately with the Torah, verse by verse, and Targum Jonathan was read alternately with the selection from Nevi'im (i.e., the haftara ). This custom continues today in Yemenite Jewish synagogues. Besides its public function in the synagogue, the Babylonian Talmud also mentions targum in the context of a personal study requirement: "A person should always review his portions of scripture along with
5180-450: The three poetical books; their names do not differ among the various traditions. For learning purposes, the t'amim are arranged in a traditional order of recitation called a " zarqa table", showing both the names and the symbols themselves. These tables are often printed at the end of a Chumash (Hebrew Pentateuch ). Targum A targum ( Imperial Aramaic : תרגום , interpretation , translation , version ; plural: targumim )
5254-493: The translator of the Bible was simply called hammeturgem (he who translates). Other than the meaning "translate", the verb tirgem also means "to explain". Targum refers to " translation " and argumentation or " explanation ". The two most important targumim for liturgical purposes are: These two targumim are mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud as targum dilan ("our Targum"), giving them official status. In
5328-669: The way of the LORD". As the word qore takes the high-level disjunctive zakef katon this meaning is discouraged by the cantillation marks. Accordingly, the New Revised Standard Version translates "A voice cries out: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the L ORD , ...'" while the New Jewish Publication Society Version has "A voice rings out: 'Clear in the desert a road for the L ORD '." Most cantillation signs are written on
5402-558: Was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Hebrew : תַּנַ״ךְ , romanized : Tana"kh ) that a professional translator ( מְתוּרגְמָן mǝṯurgǝmān ) would give in the common language of the listeners when that was not Biblical Hebrew . This had become necessary near the end of the first century BCE, as the common language was Aramaic and Hebrew was used for little more than schooling and worship. The translator frequently expanded his translation with paraphrases, explanations and examples, so it became
5476-478: Was traditionally called Targum Yerushalmi ("Jerusalem Targum"), and written in Western Aramaic. An important one of these was mistakenly labeled "Targum Jonathan" in later printed versions (though all medieval authorities refer to it by its correct name). The error crept in because of an abbreviation: the printer interpreted the abbreviation TY (ת"י) to stand for Targum Yonathan (תרגום יונתן) instead of
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