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In 1924, Professor Sperber graduated from Bonn University with a dissertation on'Das Propheten-Targum in seinem Verhältnis zum masoretischen Text'. He was then invited to prepare a critical edition of the Targum. Thus Professor Sperber began an immense task.The Bible in Aramaic is the fruit of more than forty years of study, during which he made innumerable trips to various countries in order to visit libraries and examine manuscripts. The first part of the Bible in Aramaic appeared in 1959. Needless to say that this work is indispensable for students of the Old Testament. Let the reviews that have accumulated over the years speak for themselves.

The centrepiece of this book is a critical edition of the Targum of Job which notes all variants from a total of 14 manuscripts and 2 printed editions.In the introductory section the first two chapters give a description of the principal printed editions and the manuscripts. A chapter on'The Stemma'considers how the various strands of textual tradition relate to each other. There is also a chapter on'Multiple Translation', a phenomenon particularly associated with the Targum of Job whereby more than one translation is often given to whole verses or to individual words and phrases. A final chapter describes in detail the methods underlying the critical edition.This book will provide a useful tool for those working on the textual criticism of the Old Testament and for those interested in the history of Jewish biblical exegesis.