Who
Aramaic translations and paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible, read aloud in synagogues after Hebrew ceased to be the everyday language. They often expand the text with interpretation, and so preserve how ancient Jews understood it. Their exact dates are debated, which Pitre acknowledges.
What Pitre quotes
- Targum Neofiti on Genesis 3:15 — the woman's sons will 'make appeasement in the end, in the day of King Messiah' — the protoevangelium read messianically (p 27)
- Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 3:15 — the same messianic reading, 'in the days of the King Messiah,' in Etheridge's public-domain translation (a parallel Pitre does not cite) (p 27)
- Targum Isaiah 66:7–8 — 'her king will be revealed' — the painless birth read of the Messiah (p 121)
- Targum on Micah 5:1–3 — the ruler from Bethlehem and the birth pangs before his coming (p 123)