[Avodah] Targumim from Sinai

[Sholom Simon]

RAM wrote:

> This morning, as I began learning Parshas Shemos, I noticed that the 
> first
> pesukim contain the word Ivri (Hebrew) several times in various forms, 
> and
> in every case, Onkelos translates it as some form of Yehudai (Jew). In 
> my
> opinion, this is a very reasonable translation if Onkelos was trying to
> explain the Torah to his contemporaries, but it is highly unlikely that 
> a
> translation dating from Sinai would have used this word.

I don't understand the stira.  As I learned it: Onkelos was explaining 
based on a Torah-mi-Sinai *understanding*.

> So I decided to
> post this as evidence that although the ideas and concepts which appear 
> in
> Onkelos' translation might date from Sinai, the exact words were 
> probably
> his own.

I was unaware that folks thought otherwise!

> I wondered why I didn't notice this translation in recent parshiyos. It
> turns out that forms of the word Ivri appear six times in Sefer 
> Bereshis
> (14:13, 39:14, 29:17, 40:15, 41:12, 43:32) and Onkelos *always* 
> translates
> it as some Aramaic form of Ivri -- "Hebrew", not "Jew".

I have a Sefer on Onkelos (Drazin and Wagner) which explains that in 
Berehis he renders Ivri literally, but when the family grew into a 
nation (in Shemos) he used the nation's name known among his 
contemporaries.  The authors say that it's Onkelos' tendency to update 
the names of nations and places as they were contemporaneously known.

FWIW,

-- Sholom