Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

Targum shel Divrei ha-Yamim Rishonim va-Aharonim yisdo Rabi Yosef rosh yeshivah be-Surya: Paraphrasis chaldaica in Librum Priorem et Posteriorum Chronicorum (Aramaic Paraphrase of the Biblical Books of Chronicles by Joseph ben Hiyya) [From the LIBRARY of the CELEBRATED SCHOLAR of ISLAMIC LITERATURE, G.H.A. JUYNBOLL]

(Bible: Old Testament; Chronicles; Aramaic; Latin). Joseph ben Hiyya; David Wilkins (ed.)

Amsterdam: Jan Boom, 1715. First edition. Hardcover. Small quarto. [asterisk]4 a-f4 (-blank f4) A-3F4 (= 235 leaves). [54], 415, [1, blank]pp. Contemporary vellum with exposed thongs (boards somewhat bowed, spine darkened), early manuscript title in Hebrew and Latin at spine. Old owner entry at top margin title, memorial label at front paste-down. A very good copy, amply-margined, with fine, crisp text throughout.

Important edition of this Aramaic version of the biblical books of Chronicles, attributed to Joseph ben Hiyya (d. 333), a Babylonian amora and head of the Pumbedita academy near present-day Falluja, Iraq. "[Ben Hiyya] was also distinguished in biblical exegesis and left an Aramaic translation of parts of the Bible, which is often quoted. It is not to be assumed, however, that Joseph translated the whole Bible, though the Aramaic translation of the Books of Chronicles is ascribed to him... (Enc. Jud.). The editio princeps, edited from an Erfurt manuscript by Matthias Frederick Beck, and accompanied by substantial annotations, was published at Augsburg in 1680. "After this [David] Wilkins gave the public an edition from a Cambridge manuscript, of which the text was more pure and more complete... The critic should unite both these editions, the former for the value of its learned notes, and the latter for its full and accurate text” (The Biblical Repertory).

The Coptic scholar, David Wilkens (1685–1745), was born of Prussian parentage in Memel, Lithuania... Little is known about his education in Germany (probably in Berlin) or how he acquired his knowledge of ancient and Semitic languages, which was extensive rather than profound. He referred to the antiquarian Ezechiel Spanheim, the elector of Brandenburg's ambassador in England from 1701 to 1710, as his former teacher. By 1707 Wilkins was studying at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and had encountered a group of clerical protectors in London. In 1709, engaged in preparing a history of the patriarchs of Alexandria (which remained in manuscript) and the editio princeps of the Coptic (Bohairic) New Testament, the Novum Testamentum Aegyptium (1716), he left for the continent. He called on scholars, examined manuscripts in Vienna, Rome, and Paris, and stopped in Amsterdam in 1714 to see to the publication of his first works -- an edition of the Aramaic paraphrasis of the books of Chronicles and an Armenian version of the apocryphal third epistle to the Corinthians (1715) -- and of John Chamberlayne's polyglot edition of the Lord's prayer, to which he contributed... Wilkins was an industrious scholar. In the three years he spent as librarian at Lambeth he made important contributions to the cataloguing of manuscripts. In 1721 he edited the Anglo-Saxon laws, in 1725–6 the complete works of John Selden, and in 1731 the Coptic Pentateuch. His main work was his Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, an account of British church councils from 446 to 1717... Wilkins had many detractors -- John Gagnier, the professor of Arabic at Oxford, who deplored his incompetence in Arabic and Hebrew, Edward Harley, who described him as ‘a very great scoundrel’, and the cantankerous Thomas Hearne, who, as librarian at the Bodleian, had watched him turn from a young man ‘of a civil, Courteous and modest behaviour’ into ‘a vain ambitious man, of little judgement, tho' great industry’, ready to ‘do anything in the World for a little Money’ (Alastair Hamilton: "Wilkens, David" -- ODNB online).

Provenance: From the library of G.H.A. Juynboll (1935-2010), the celebrated scholar of Islamic Hadith literature, with his printed memorial label at front paste-down. Very Good. Item #49239

Hebrew title: תרגום של דברי הימים ראשונים ואחרונים יסדו ראש ישיבה בסוריא

References: The Biblical Repertory (1834) 6:248-249. Brunet 3:574 - "Livre recherché et peu commun". Enc. Jud. 10:229. Le Long, Bibliotheca sacra (1723) 1:92B. Le Long-Masch 2.1, p. 48: “Multo correctior est editio ac praecedens Beckiana...” [long note, in which the relation with the [never published?] version by Clarke is discussed]. Cf. D&M 2416: The editio princeps of the Targum on Chronicles, printed from an Erfurt MS., and edited with a Latin translation by M. F. Beck (Augsburg, 1680-3, 2 vols, 4to.). The present edition is “a more complete form of the text from a Cambridge MS. ... edited with a Latin translation by D. Wilkins.

Price: $950.00