# Aramaic: מינה ובה על ארעא



## zaw

Hi,

Genesis 1:11 Targum Neofiti is:

ואמ' ממרא דייי תפק ארעא דתין דעשב דמזריעין זרע אילן דפירין דעבד פירין למינה די נצבתא מינה ובה על ארעא והוה כן כממרה.

What does מינה ובה על ארעא mean? For comparisons' sake:

בראשית א'
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים תַּֽדְשֵׁ֤א הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ דֶּ֗שֶׁא עֵ֚שֶׂב מַזְרִ֣יעַ זֶ֔רַע עֵ֣ץ פְּרִ֞י עֹ֤שֶׂה פְּרִי֙ לְמִינ֔וֹ אֲשֶׁ֥ר זַרְעוֹ־ב֖וֹ עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן׃

תרגום אונקלוס בראשית א':י"א
וַאֲמַר יְיָ תַּדְאֵית אַרְעָא דִּתְאָה עִסְבָּא דְּבַר זַרְעֵיהּ מִזְדְּרַע אִילָן פֵּירִין עָבֵיד פֵּירִין לִזְנֵיהּ דְּבַר זַרְעֵיהּ בֵּיהּ עַל אַרְעָא וַהֲוָה כֵן.

תרגום ירושלמי (יונתן) בראשית א':י"א
ואמר אלקים תרבי ארעא דיתאי עישבא דביזריה מזדרע ואילן פירי עביד פירי ליזניה דביזריה ביה על ארעא והוה כן.

Toda raba


----------



## Ali Smith

ואמר ממרא דייי תפק ארעא דתין דעשב דמזריעין זרע אילן דפירין דעבד פירין למינה די נצבתא מינה ובה על ארעא והוה כן כממרה.

And the word of Y----- said, "May the earth bring forth sprouting plants of grass that produce seed (cognate accusative) of a fruit tree (lit. tree of fruits) that makes fruits according to its type, from which and in which is the plant upon the earth." and thus it was according to His commandment.


----------



## Glasguensis

Might I suggest that it probably wasn’t the intention of the author(s) to make no sense whatsoever, and that their intended meaning was probably something closer to the original Hebrew and the other Aramaic versions, of which there are numerous translations.


----------



## Abaye

נִצְבְּתָא is attested in Daniel 2:41, meaning: (the) strength/firmness. See also Strong's H5326.

מִנֵּיהּ וּבֵיהּ is an idiom used a lot in the Jewish scriptures, Gemara etc. The meaning is: within, from within, from its very self.
מִנֵּיהּ וּבֵיהּ - האקדמיה ללשון העברית

Therefore the translation seems to me: (trees) whose firmness is (= that stand firmly) within and on the earth.


----------



## Ali Smith

Glasguensis said:


> Might I suggest that it probably wasn’t the intention of the author(s) to make no sense whatsoever, and that their intended meaning was probably something closer to the original Hebrew and the other Aramaic versions, of which there are numerous translations.


To complete this illustration of how Targums incorporate expansions into their translations, let us look at two large additions. The first comes from Genesis 38 in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the source of our examples of literal translation, and the second then returns to Lamentations.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Genesis 38:24-26 contains a large addition that expands the climactic moment in the story of Judah and his daughter Tamar. The addition contains 179 Aramaic words.

(pg. 32 of _The Targums: A Critical Introduction_ by Flesher and Chilton)

Sometimes the additional material addresses changes and events from a time after the original text was written. The Targum of Lamentations, for example, addresses the question of why Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed in 70 CE, even as the biblical text of Lamentations addressed the circumstances following the temple’s destruction in 586 BCE. Targums sometimes simply deal with differences between notions suggested in Scripture and normative practice, as when Targum Neofiti places an expansion in Genesis 3:28 to clarify that having Adam “eat the plants of the field” does not mean that humans should graze like animals, but instead that they should tend and harvest the crops.

(pg. 13 of _The Targums: A Critical Introduction_ by Flesher and Chilton)

So no, the authors of Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan intentionally incorporated expansions into their translations. Actually, whether they did it intentionally or unintentionally is beside the point.


----------



## Ali Smith

Abaye said:


> נִצְבְּתָא is attested in Daniel 2:41, meaning: (the) strength/firmness. See also Strong's H5326.
> 
> מִנֵּיהּ וּבֵיהּ is an idiom used a lot in the Jewish scriptures, Gemara etc. The meaning is: within, from within, from its very self.
> מִנֵּיהּ וּבֵיהּ - האקדמיה ללשון העברית
> 
> Therefore the translation seems to me: (trees) whose firmness is (= that stand firmly) within and on the earth.


That makes a lot of sense, but what word is "whose" translating? I mean, there's no pronominal suffix at the end of נצבתא, is there?

ואמר ממרא דייי תפק ארעא דתין דעשב דמזריעין זרע אילן דפירין דעבד פירין למינה די נצבתא מינה ובה על ארעא והוה כן כממרה.

And the word of Y----- said, "May the earth bring forth sprouting plants of grass that produce seed (cognate accusative) of a fruit tree (lit. tree of fruits) that makes fruits according to its type, from which and in which is the firmness/strength upon the earth." and thus it was according to His commandment.


----------



## Abaye

Ali Smith said:


> what word is "whose" translating? I mean, there's no pronominal suffix at the end of נצבתא, is there?


I took די נצבתא as: whose firmness. Not on safe ground though.


----------



## Glasguensis

Ali Smith said:


> So no, the authors of Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan intentionally incorporated expansions into their translations. Actually, whether they did it intentionally or unintentionally is beside the point.


 For someone who is apparently passionate about studying text you don’t seem to have paid a lot of attention to what I wrote. Nobody is disputing that the Targums contain additional notes. What I said was that in general it is closely related to the original text, of the type Moses parted the waters [of the Red Sea], as opposed to Moses parted the waters [fish hat banana]. So if your proposed translation makes no sense, it’s probably incorrect, and you can sometimes draw inferences about what it might be by reading the various translations of the biblical text.


----------



## Ali Smith

The questions being asked on this forum are about very specific words in the Targums. They are _not_ about the general sense of a passage.


----------



## Glasguensis

But since this is a dead language of which only a few fragments exist the meaning of a word can only be deduced from an understanding of the general sense, preferably by finding several examples of the same word. If you find only one example of a word it becomes extremely different to be sure of what it’s meaning was when it was written.


----------

