1 Is ED ITOR PAG E It's the Monday after Pentecost, and Pentecost texts my and melodies are still swirling about in mind and heai.t. This year I had occasion to ponder over sorre of the Targurn texts fran which Saint Luke apparently cribbed part of 1he material he used in shaping up his account of the first Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles. Targums are fascinating things.Early Jewish camtunities apparently had as much difficulty in grasping biblical Hebrew as rcodem Catholic congregations have in following a Latin liturgy. So the ancient Hebrew sacred texts were turned into Aramaic, though not usually with a view to providing a literal translation of the original; for the text Aramaic was than amd m:>re of a paraphrase adaptation a literal translation -sanething midway between a translation and a ccmrentary. This made it possible for the fellow responsible for the Targurn to highlight certain points of detail whose theological resonance might othei:wise go unperceived . Often it was a matter of interpolating only one or two words. in A case point is Saint Luke 's description of the first Pentecost. The Fathers and nost contemporary exegetes are pretty well agreed that Saint Luke of set purpose presents the climactic event as the inauguration of the New Covenant, and as the Law. pranulgation of the New For many tails, his point of reference is, of course, the inauguration of the First Covenant, and the pranulgation of the Old Law at Sinai; so it's not ticularly surprising the in that much of vocabulary of Acts 2 is found dus 19. But a few important details are to be found, not in the the simple, straightfm:ward text of Exodus 19, but in interpolated version found in sane of the Ta.rgums . For instance: "When the day of Pentecost had cane, they
1 ED ITOR Is PAG E It's the Monday after Pentecost, and Pentecost texts and melodies are still swirling about in my mind and heai.t. This year I had occasion to ponder over sorre of the Targurn texts fran which Saint Luke apparently cribbed part of 1he material he used in shaping up his account of the first Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles. Targums are fascinating things.Early Jewish camtunities apparently had as much difficulty in grasping biblical Hebrew as rcodem Catholic congregations have in following a Latin liturgy. So the ancient Hebrew sacred texts were turned into Aramaic, though not usually with a view to providing a literal translation of the original; for the Aramaic text was m:>re of a paraphrase amd adaptation than a literal translation -sanething midway between a translation and a ccmrentary. This made it possible for the fellow responsible for the Targurn to highlight certain points of detail whose theological resonance might othei:wise go unperceived . Often it was a matter of interpolating only one or two words. A case in point is Saint Luke 's description of the first Pentecost. The Fathers and nost contemporary exegetes are pretty well agreed that Saint Luke of set purpose presents the climactic event as the inauguration of the New Covenant, and as the pranulgation of the New Law. For many tails, his point of reference is, of course, the inauguration of the First Covenant, and the pranulgation of the Old Law at Sinai; so it's not ticularly surprising that much of the vocabulary of Acts 2 is found in dus 19. But a few important details are to be found, not in the simple, straightfm:ward text of Exodus 19, but in the interpolated version found in sane of the Ta.rgums . For instance: "When the day of Pentecost had cane, they
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