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A New Approach to the Evolution of Texts Based on the Manuscripts of the Targums

Descripción del proyecto

Estudio innovador de la evolución de los tárgumes

Un tárgum es una paráfrasis judía en arameo de la Biblia hebrea y ofrece una visión única de la percepción judía del mensaje de Dios. Los tárgumes se conservan en manuscritos que difieren unos de otros y que datan de muchos siglos después de la composición original de los textos. Con el proyecto TEXTEVOLVE, financiado con fondos europeos, se ampliará el conjunto de fuentes primarias disponibles para el análisis mediante la identificación y el examen de tárgumes manuscritos no estudiados anteriormente. Además, se analizarán aplicando una nueva metodología basada en las técnicas de la biología evolutiva, lo cual permitirá a los investigadores reconstruir con mayor precisión la historia del desarrollo de los textos y comprender mejor el significado cultural y teológico de los cambios que los copistas introducían en el texto.

Objetivo

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.

Régimen de financiación

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

Institución de acogida

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Aportación neta de la UEn
€ 1 401 797,87
Dirección
OUDE MARKT 13
3000 Leuven
Bélgica

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Región
Vlaams Gewest Prov. Vlaams-Brabant Arr. Leuven
Tipo de actividad
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Enlaces
Coste total
€ 1 401 797,87

Beneficiarios (4)