Sometimes tracking down ancient Jewish sources on Scripture can be very challenging, especially for the uninitiate ( like me). Understanding the difference between Targums, rabbah, Talmud, Mishnah, Midrash etc. can be quite complicated. So…in my research, I am hunting up the Song of Songs Rabbah, which is a midrashic commentary on the Song of Songs, compiled over a long time in Jewish oral tradition. The other source I am looking for is the Targum to the Song of Songs, an Aramaic “translation” of the text. I put “translation” in scare quotes, because the translator does plenty of interpreting rather than straight-up text translation.
The original language texts of these two sources are not easy to find on the internet. In fact, they may only exist in printed editions. Translations, however, are easier to find.
The Targum to the Song of Songs on Google Books
Gollancz, Hermann, translator. The Targum to the ‘Song of Songs’; The Book of the Apple; The Ten Jewish Martyrs; A Dialogue on Games of Chance. London: Luzac, 1908. Pp. 15-90.
There is an Aramaic text out there in the world of public domain, but I can’t find it in Google Books: Raphael Hai Melamed, “The Targum to Canticles According to Six Yemen Mss. Compared with the ‘Textus Receptus’ (Ed. de Lagarde),” Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, 10 (1919-20): 377-410, 11 (1920-21): 1-20, and 12 (1921-22): 57-117. It looks like this series of articles was compiled into a book in 1921: R. H. Melamed, The Targum to Canticles According to Six Yemen Mss. Compared with the ‘Textus Receptus’, (Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1921) . You can get an electronic copy from the Internet Archive.
I also found an online translation by Jay Treat who uses the text provided by Melamed.
Song of Songs Rabbah is more elusive, unfortunately. Printed translations include, chronologically:
Maurice Simon, Midrash Rabbah: Esther and Song of Songs, 10 vols. (London: Soncino Press, 1939).
Jacob Neusner, Song of Songs Rabbah: An Analytical Translation, 2 vols. (University of South Florida Press, 1989-90).
Jacob Neusner, Israel’s Love Affair with God: Song of Songs, The Bible of Judaism Library (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1993).
The only printed original language text of Song of Songs Rabbah I can track down:
Samson Dunsky,Midrash Rabbah: Shir Hashirim, (Montreal, 1973). (Includes Yiddish translation. The editor’s first name is misspelled as “Simson” or “Shimshon” in some electronic records.)
And it looks like you can get an electronic copy at Internet Archive. The digital copy is made available by the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library.
If you can find more texts online or offline, make a comment on this post.
http://www.rabbinics.org/ has a link to the Midrash Rabba which points to http://www.tsel.org/torah/midrashraba/index.html Looking to the far left, click on ??? ?????? “shir hashirim/song of songs”. This opens the work in Hebrew with no English translation. Hopefully this is helpful.
Looks like the unicode for the Hebrew characters may not have worked as hoped. Shir Hashirim is the third link from the leftmost column. It is under Ester and above Rut.
Ooops! Commented too soon. Thanks for the links to the Internet Archive copies of the Targum and the Midrash Rabba Shir haShirim.
P.S. The name Samson is the translation of the Hebrew name “shimshon or simson” depending upon how one is trained to read the shin or sin letters in the name is why there is discrepancy … a “sh” or “s” sound for the letter.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TARGUM SONG OF SONGS AND MIDRASH RABBAH SONG OF SONGS
By PENELOPE ROBIN JUNKERMANN
A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities
Including the English translation of the Soncino edition of Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah:
https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:105720&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF