[Mesorah] Targummim

[Zev Sero]

On 13/03/2012 12:14 PM, R. Rich Wolpoe wrote:
> The nature of Targum YBU on Humash is shrouded in mystery,

It's not a mystery, it's just a misprint.  It's "tof yud", and some
half-educated bochur hazetzer thought the yud stood for Yonasan, and
helpfully added the author's father's name as well.  TY probably stands
for "targum Yerushalmi".

It's the same sort of "helpful" printer's emendation that gave us
the sefer "Hilchos Eretz Yisroel" that is quoted in the first tosfos
in Chulin.  There is no such sefer, there has never been such a sefer,
but the printer saw the abbreviation "alef yud" in the manuscript and
decided to expand it for the benefit of those less-educated than himself
who might not know what it stands for.   AY actually stands for "Amar
Yehoshua", a medieval sefer halachos that is probably a Karaite hoax.
(Tosfos quotes it only to refute it, not because the author thought it
a reliable source!)

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
zev at sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
		 are expanding through human ingenuity."
		                            - Julian Simon