A redaction history of the pentateuchal Targums

"A Redaction History of the Pentateuch Targums combines Targum studies with Judaic studies. The author assigns different Targums (Fragment Targum [Recension P, MS Paris 110], Neofiti 1, Onqelos and Pseudo-Jonathan) each to a respective particular Sitz im Leben, stressing the close connection between Targum and Midrash literature. She challenges the assumption that all extant Targums were compiled for the Synagogue. Instead, she suggests that Targum Onqelos might have fulfilled a function in the context of the early beth din and demonstrates that Pseudo-Jonathan can be linked with the rhetorical practices which abounded in later amoraic, educational circles. Her theory is that Pseudo-Jonathan was actually compiled in stages. She identifies various problems, for example, the supposition by Mortensen and Flesher that rabbis and priests worked in distinct groups in the fourth century C.E."--back cover.