A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period

Abstract

A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period, by Michael Sokoloff. 2nd ed. Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University Press; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Pp. 847. $109 (cloth). ISBN 0801872340. release of this second edition of Sokoloff s Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period (DJPA) is timed to coincide with the release of the first edition of his A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Gaonic Periods (DJBA) by the same publishers. first edition of the DJPA took just under ten years to produce (1979-88) and was mostly and justifiably well received (for reviews of the first edition in English, see in particular those of Kaufman in JAOS 114 [1994]; 239-48 and Wesselius in BO 51 [1994]: 525-33). Sokoloff began work on the DJBA in 1988, and its release together with the second edition of the DJPA in late 2002 has been much anticipated. author has also just finished A Dictionary of Judean Aramaic (DJA), which covers texts from 150 B.C.E. until 200 C.E., and plans are afoot for a history of rabbinic lexicography. Thus, there can be little doubt that Sokoloff is the most prolific lexicographer of Aramaic of his generation. present reviewer organized a conference on Aramaic lexicography at the University of Sheffield, July 23-25, 2002, and there had the pleasure of meeting Sokoloff and hearing about the methods he used to produce these dictionaries. Much of this information is in the public domain already (see the following papers by Sokoloff: The Current State of Research on Galilean Aramaic,JNES 37 [1978]: 161-68; The Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: Progress and Prospects, in Stiidia Aramaica [ed. Geller et al.; JSS Supplement 4; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995], 189-97). vast majority of errors highlighted by reviewers of the first edition have been corrected in the second edition, in addition to many discovered by Sokoloff himself. For those who already own the first edition and consider $109 too much to invest, however, an alternative would be to purchase the Addenda et Corrigenda, which is to be made available separately by the Bar Ilan University Press. DJPA covers the Aramaic vocabulary of the Jewish literary and epigraphic sources from the land of Israel from the third century C.E. until after the Arab conquest. These sources are grouped by Sokoloff as follows: inscriptions, mostly from synagogues but also including tombstones and the like; targumic sources such as Targum Neofiti to the Pentateuch and the Cairo Genizah fragments; midrashic sources from the land of Israel; talmudic sources from the land of Israel; Gaonic-period halakic sources from the Genizah; poetry from Egyptian papyri and the Genizah; papyri containing correspondence and other documents from Egypt; magical texts, specifically amulets discovered in the land of Israel and the Genizah; marriage contracts, again from Egypt and the Genizah; and, finally, the marginal notes to the Bible in the Masoretic codices. For each of these genres Sokoloff provides a detailed list of the textual sources used in the compilation of DJPA (pp. 19-28), and also an index for all cited passages, again divided according to genre and source (pp. 595-820). Until now, for the dialects covered by Sokoloff s two Jewish Aramaic dictionaries, we have had recourse mainly to Jacob Levy, Worterbuch uber die Talmudim und Midraschim (Berlin: Harz, 1924), and Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London: Putnam, 1903). These are out of date, however, as they were produced prior to a number of significant studies on Aramaic lexicography, the publication of new sources that have come to light from the Cairo Genizah and other locations, and the production of more reliable text editions of the various coipora. problems inherent in the study of the Jewish Aramaic dialects are compounded in both Levy and Jastrow by the inclusion of postbiblical Hebrew words and the lack of any delineation with respect to dialect and text type. …