Onkelos — בְּקַדְמִין בְּרָא יְיָ יָת שְׁמַיָּא וְיָת אַרְעָא׃
Targum Jerusalem fragment — בראשׁית בְּחוּכְמָא בְּרָא יְיָ:
ORIGINALTG-R04
Targumic & Western Aramaic · Targum Readers
Palestinian/Western comparison
TG-R04Targumic AramaicOnkelos first; Western and JPA material labeled separately
ORIGINAL LANGUAGE FIRST
Onkelos — בְּקַדְמִין בְּרָא יְיָ יָת שְׁמַיָּא וְיָת אַרְעָא׃
Targum Jerusalem fragment — בראשׁית בְּחוּכְמָא בְּרָא יְיָ:
Pedagogical transliterationOnkelos: be-qadmin bera Adonai yat shemayya ve-yat ar'a · Targum Jerusalem fragment: bereshit be-ḥukhmeta bera Adonai
Plain meaningOnkelos gives a complete rendering of Genesis 1:1; the selected Targum Jerusalem witness preserves a short fragment that adds ‘with wisdom.’
Pointing follows the identified Targum edition named in Source notes. It is edition-specific; forms are not generalized to all Targumic or Western Aramaic.WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT
Palestinian/Western comparison
The two witnesses must remain separate. Onkelos renders בְּרֵאשִׁית with בְּקַדְמִין and supplies a complete clause with the object marker יָת before both שְׁמַיָּא and אַרְעָא. The Targum Jerusalem fragment preserves בראשית, adds בְּחוּכְמָא (‘with/by wisdom’), and stops after בְּרָא יְיָ. That ending is a feature of the fragmentary witness, not evidence that Palestinian Targum omitted the remainder of the biblical verse in every form or edition.
HEAR THIS LESSONListen to the full public explanation.Teacher narration is separate from original-language pronunciation.
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SEE HOW IT WORKS
Keep the form, reading, and meaning together.
Onkelos: be-qadmin bera Adonai yat shemayya ve-yat ar'a · Targum Jerusalem fragment: bereshit be-ḥukhmeta bera Adonai
READINGPedagogical reading guide
Onkelos gives a complete rendering of Genesis 1:1; the selected Targum Jerusalem witness preserves a short fragment that adds ‘with wisdom.’
MEANINGTargumic Aramaic
Onkelos: temporal rendering בְּקַדְמִין + verb/subject + two marked objects · Targum Jerusalem fragment: בראשית retained + interpretive בְּחוּכְמָא + verb/subject · shared: בְּרָא יְיָ
EXAMPLES
Examples supplied by the approved curriculum.
Close translations — Onkelos: ‘In the beginning, Hashem created the heavens and the earth.’ Targum Jerusalem fragment: ‘At the beginning, with wisdom, Hashem created.’
SOURCE REFERENCE
Targum Onkelos on Genesis 1:1; Targum Jerusalem on Torah, Genesis 1:1 fragment
APPROVED STUDY LAYERS
Source-specific guidance from the curriculum.
Learning objective
Compare the same verse in an identified Onkelos edition and an identified Palestinian Targum-fragment edition without merging their wording or treating either as a universal dialect paradigm.
Dialect and grammar
Two edition-specific Targumic witnesses. The Jerusalem material is taught as a Palestinian/Western fragment tradition, not as a complete or uniform Western-Aramaic paradigm.
Practice
List three observable differences between the witnesses. Which words are shared, and why must the shorter line be described as a fragment rather than silently completed from Onkelos?
Answer key
Differences: (1) Onkelos has בְּקַדְמִין where the Jerusalem fragment has בראשית; (2) the fragment adds בְּחוּכְמָא; (3) Onkelos continues with יָת שְׁמַיָּא וְיָת אַרְעָא, while the preserved Jerusalem line ends after בְּרָא יְיָ. Shared words: בְּרָא יְיָ. It is called a fragment because the identified edition preserves only this short line at Genesis 1:1; filling it from another witness would create a composite text.
Source notes
Primary editions: Targum Onkelos, vocalized according to the Yemenite Taj , CC-BY-SA; Targum Jerusalem on Torah, Public Domain. The Targum Jerusalem line is preserved and labeled as a fragment, including its unpointed initial word and terminal punctuation.
REMEMBER