In spite of some evidence of popular use of Hebrew in certain circles, it is nearly unanimous amongst scholars that Aramaic was the common language of Israelites in Yeshua’s time (and Hebrew a religious language). The Targums are paraphrases of the Bible (loose translations with comments inserted, rather like study Bibles). Our manuscripts of the Targums are mostly from the Middle Ages. But were there Targums in use in Yeshua’s time?

In Noncanonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation, Craig Evans considers the evidence for Targums being in use in Yeshua’s time.

Fragments of Targums were found in the Cairo Geniza (a storehouse for old sacred scrolls which could not be thrown away which was discovered and started being studied in the late 19th century). Some of these documents were older copies of texts than any we had to date. The find of Targums here began to suggest they might be older than originally thought.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, likewise, fragments of Targums were found. This means undeniably that Targums existed before Yeshua’s time. Yet how common were they? Was there one Targum or many Targums? Evans says the preponderance of evidence is that Targums existed, multiple ones, in Yeshua’s time.

The Targum texts as we have them today are products of a later time than the New Testament, but parts of some of them date to before his time. Targum Onkelos (or Onqelos) is the best known, appearing in rabbinic Bibles next to the Hebrew Masoretic text. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (not so named because of any deception, but because of early confusion about its origin) is also well-known along with Neofiti, the Fragment Targum, and various Targums on the prophets and all books of the Hebrew Bible but Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah are known.

The Targums contain many messianic interpretations of Bible passages. There are also possible parallels to the sayings of Yeshua in the gospels which may help us understand why the gospel writers translated citations from the Hebrew Bible the way they did. Also, certain phrases in Yeshua’s words may have their origin in the Targums. It is likely that Yeshua heard the scriptures read weekly in the Aramaic and that popular translations were memorized and recounted by him in his teaching. Evans gives a list of the most promising parallels.

What is the real story about literacy in Yeshua’s time?

John Meier provides a helpful overview of the data in his A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1.

First, note that the majority were not literate in Hebrew or the Hebrew scriptures. This is evident from the existence and widespread use of Targums (Aramaic paraphrases which were read with the Hebrew text so the majority could understand). People not only could not read Hebrew. They could not understand spoken Hebrew in many cases.

Second, a fair number of people were literate in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. One evidence of this is the relative abundance of inscriptions on objects which were not likely written only by the upper classes (including pitchers and arrows, for example). The book of Maccabees suggests that some Jewish families had private copies of the Torah (1:56-57). Josephus says that families were expected to teach their children to read and learn the Torah (Against Apion 2.25).

The resulting picture is of a higher literacy rate in Judea and Galilee than in other parts of the Roman empire. Jews had a religious motivation to gain at least a certain kind of literacy related to the scriptures (Hebrew and Aramaic). Yet the ideal was far from being realized, so that the majority required Aramaic readings in the synagogue to understand the scriptures.