Descrizione del progetto
Uno studio innovativo sull’evoluzione dei Targumim
I Targumim sono parafrasi in aramaico ebraico della Bibbia ebraica e ci offrono informazioni uniche sulla percezione dei messaggi di Dio da parte degli ebrei. I Targumim sono conservati all’interno di manoscritti che differiscono l’uno dall’altro e che risalgono a molti secoli dopo la composizione originale dei testi. Il progetto TEXTEVOLVE, finanziato dall’UE, espanderà l’insieme delle fonti primarie disponibili per l’analisi identificando ed esaminando manoscritti dei Targumim mai studiati prima. Il progetto analizzerà inoltre i Targumim impiegando una nuova metodologia basta su tecniche della biologia evoluzionistica, consentendo ai ricercatori di ricostruire in modo più accurato la storia dello sviluppo dei testi e di comprendere meglio il significato culturale e teologico delle modifiche apportate al testo dai copisti.
Obiettivo
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.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantIstituzione ospitante
3000 Leuven
Belgio