The Word of the Lord (Christ) and His appearances in the pre-Christian Targums.
John Chapter 1 states that Jesus had existed prior to His incarnation in the Hebrew Scriptures as a Divine, eternal Person named "The Word of the Lord"John 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was WITH God, and the Word WAS God. 2 HE was WITH God in the beginning. 3 Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it......14 The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of Grace and Truth.
Clear references to someone named "The Word of the Lord" exist in the Old Testament, Just one example.
Gen 15:1 The Word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”
"The Word of the Lord" (The pre-incarnate Christ) is shown clearest in the ancient Aramaic Targums. What were they? They were translations of the text of the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic - a type of study text of the Old Testament, (Tanakh) which contained extra material to help explain the text to the students of Rabbis. The Targums explained the Biblical Text in a way that students would clearly grasp the meaning of the Text as the Rabbis' understood it. Thus in the Targums the ORIGINAL text of the Bible passage is enhanced with numerous paraphrases and exegetical material.
A few Targums exist which vary in translation from each other. Examples include the Targum Onkelos, and the Palestinian Targum.
Yet it may be the Targum of Jonathan (The Jerusalem Targum) (Yonathan) that is of the most interest to Christians today. The authorship is ascribed to Jonathan ben Uzziel, who is said by the Jewish authority of the Babylonian "Megillah" 3a, to have formulated his Targum orally, in accordance with the instructions of the Prophets Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi. He was the most noted pupil of Rabbi Hillel Hazaken,- one of the most influential Rabbis in Jewish history. He lived "more than 2,000 years ago during the time of the Second Temple",
How do these Targum translations affect Christians? Here is an example. In most accurate translations of Genesis 19:24 in our Bibles there is a strange anomaly. A reference to two distinct Lords'
Gen 19:24 Then Jehovah hath rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah, from the Heavens;
In two seperate Targums, Genesis 19:24 is written in a way that is highly interesting to those of us who have read John 1.
Targum Jonathan Gen 19:24 "And the Word of the Lord Himself had made to descend upon the people of Sedom and Amorah showers of favour, that they might work repentance from their wicked works. But when they saw the showers of favour, they said, So, our wicked works are not manifest before Him? He turned (then), and caused to descend upon them bitumen and fire from before the Lord from the Heavens.
Palestinian Targum Gen 19:24 "And the Word of the Lord had caused showers of favour to descend upon Sedom and Amorah, to the intent that they might work repentance, but they did it not: so that they said, Wickedness is not manifest before the Lord. Behold, then, there are now sent down upon them sulphur and fire from before the Word of the Lord from Heaven.
It is proof that the Jews around the time of Christ understood a Divine person existed named "the Word of the Lord" Someone they were familiar with who was not the same as the One we name "God The Father".
Examine the link below. All mentions of "The Word of the Lord" throughout the Targums are highlighted in Yellow, proving that Rabbi's who did not believe in Christ were even so fully aware that a Divine manifestation of God called "The Word of the Lord" made regular appearances in their Scriptures. It seems that many of us Christians TODAY have no knowledge of this - yet Rabbis at the time of Christ would have KNOWN who the "Word of the Lord" was.
Word of the Lord in the Targums
PS After seeing the above link - Search on YOUTUBE for Sam Shamoun speaking during his live-stream debates of "The Trinity in the Old Testament" He is very knowledgeable.