David Shepherd, «The Case of The Targum of Job in the Rabbinic Bible and the Solger Codex (MS Nürnberg)», Vol. 79 (1998) 360-380
It is a well-known fact that even in its earliest edition, an Aramaic translation or targum was amongst the vast and varied material assembled for inclusion in the Rabbinic Bible. But in contrast to the comparative wealth of information we possess regarding the circumstances surrounding its publication, we possess little knowledge with regard to the sources used by Felix de Prato when he took up the task of editing the 1517 Rabbinic Bible for the Venetian publisher Daniel Bomberg. While prior research has shown the importance of the targum text preserved in the Solger Codex (Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg) in any attempt to solve the puzzle of the pre-history of the Rabbinic Bible's targum text, many pieces of this puzzle remain as yet unexamined. The present study locates the targum text preserved in MS Nürnberg (Solger Codex) within the stemmatological framework proposed by D. Stec in the introduction to his critical edition of the Targum of Job. More importantly, the present paper presents decisive evidence (through the detection of editorial errors) that the editor of the first Rabbinic Bible (Felix de Prato) copied his targum text of Job directly from Codex Solger preserved in the Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg.
Of all the noteworthy dates in the long and colorful history of religious publishing in the West, perhaps one of the most well-known, is that of March 13, 1517. This was of course the date on which, according to the traditional account, a professor of theology by the name of Luther presented his 95 theses to the world via the Wittenburg castle church door. But this, in several respects, "unorthodox" publication was not the only significant publishing event of 1517. Later that same year, across the Alps to the south in Venice, Daniel Bomberg, a far less famous though certainly more professional publisher, published a large volume which undoubtedly for targumists constituted a more significant landmark. The Bomberg Bible of 1517 was the first edition of what was to become throughout its many subsequent printings the standard version of the Hebrew Scriptures within the Jewish tradition.
While Daniel Bomberg would come to be well-known for his great editions of Scripture and Talmud, eventually succeeding his rival Soncino as the pre-eminent publisher of Hebrew books in Italy, it is interesting to note that his first publication was in fact a Latin