Description du projet
Une étude innovante sur l’évolution des targums
Les targums sont des paraphrases juives de la Bible hébraïque formulées en araméen. Ils nous offrent un aperçu unique des perceptions juives du message de Dieu. Les targums sont conservés dans des manuscrits qui diffèrent les uns des autres et qui datent de plusieurs siècles après la composition originale des textes. Le projet TEXTEVOLVE, financé par l’UE, permettra d’élargir le réservoir de sources primaires disponibles pour analyse en identifiant et en étudiant des manuscrits de targums encore jamais examinés. Il analysera également les targums en utilisant une nouvelle méthodologie basée sur des techniques issues de la biologie évolutive. Cela permettra aux chercheurs de reconstruire plus précisément l’histoire de l’évolution des textes et de mieux comprendre la signification culturelle et théologique des changements apportés par les copistes.
Objectif
TEXTEVOLVE will study the Targums. Targums are Jewish Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible. They are important because they provide a unique insight into what Jews believed God was saying to them through their sacred texts at transformative moments in Jewish history, particularly the aftermath of the First Jewish-Roman War (66–74 CE). The state of the art in the study of the Targums is defined by 1) methodology, and 2) the primary sources that are available. TEXTEVOLVE will go beyond the state of the art in both areas.
Methodology — We do not possess the author’s original copy of any Targum. Rather, in most cases we have multiple copies preserved in much later manuscripts, all of which differ one from another. Existing methodology aims to reconstruct the earliest possible form of the text. But changes made by later copyists also yield important insights into evolving Jewish culture, theology, and praxis. Therefore TEXTEVOLVE reframes the dominant research question in the field so that neither the importance of the original wording nor the significance of subsequent changes is neglected. It asks: How did the text of the Targums evolve over time and why? TEXTEVOLVE will develop a new methodology, called Evolutionary Philology, that is capable of addressing this core question. It will use techniques from evolutionary biology that have not previously been applied to texts to achieve this. This will have implications across disciplines that work with historical texts.
Primary Sources — To ensure the most robust possible dataset, TEXTEVOLVE will expand the pool of primary sources available for analysis. TEXTEVOLVE will find Targum manuscripts that have been ‘lost’ in un-catalogued or poorly catalogued collections, and will analyse for the first time recently discovered manuscripts from the ‘European Genizah’. Since the available primary sources define the boundaries of any discipline, this is the second major way in which TEXTEVOLVE goes beyond the state of the art.
Champ scientifique
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitution d’accueil
3000 Leuven
Belgique