To attribute this targum to Jonathan ben Uzziel flatly contradicts the talmudic tradition (Megillah 3a), which quite clearly attributes the targum to Nevi'im alone to him, while stating that there is no official targum to Ketuvim.
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From the Land of Israel, the tradition of targum to Ketuvim made its way to Italy, and from there to medieval Ashkenaz and Sepharad.
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The Peshitta is the traditional Bible of Syriac-speaking Christians (who speak several different dialects of Aramaic).
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Unfortunately, it was then mistitled as a manuscript of Targum Onkelos until 1949, when Alejandro Díez Macho noticed that it differed significantly from Targum Onkelos.
Targum | Targum Onkelos |
Of his numerous manuscripts which contained glosses to the Talmud, Midrash, Shulkan 'Aruk, and explanatory notes to his father's works, a commentary on the introduction to the Tikkune Zohar (Vilna, 1867), a commentary on Psalms I-C באר אברהם (Warsaw, 1887), Sa'arat Eliyahu, exegetical notes and biographical data about his father (Jerusalem, 1889), and Targum Abraham, notes on Targum Onkelos (Jerusalem, 1896), have been published.
He wrote the first critical commentary on the Aramaic version of Isaiah (The Isaiah Targum, 1987), as well as academic studies that analyze Jesus in his Judaic context (A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible, 1984; The Temple of Jesus, 1992; Pure Kingdom, 1996), and explain the Bible critically (Redeeming Time: The Wisdom of Ancient Jewish and Christian Festal Calendars, 2002; The Cambridge Companion to the Bible, 2007).
The discovery of an unpublished commentary on the Targum of Onkelos induced him to study Aramaic (preface to his "Oheb Ger").
:Rav Huna bar Yehuda says in the name of Rabbi Ammi: "one should always complete the reading of one's weekly Torah portion with the congregation, twice from the mikra (i.e. Torah) and once from the Targum."
At that time Targum Neofiti was titled incorrectly as a manuscript of Targum Onkelos, and it remained unremarked until 1949, when Professor Jose Maria Millas Vallicrosa and Alejandro Díez Macho noticed that it differed significantly from Targum Onkelos.
Targum Press was founded in 1984 by noted Jerusalem-based educator, the late Rabbi Moshe Dombey, at the time a lecturer at yeshiva Ohr Somayach and Neve Yerushalayim seminary.
But because of a printer's mistake it was later labeled Targum Jonathan, in reference to Jonathan ben Uzziel.