The Hebrew Bible opens with a spare, magnificent account of creation in seven days. The Targum Jonathan, an ancient Aramaic translation composed between the 2nd and 7th centuries CE, retells the same story but slips in details that transform the theology entirely.
Take the most dramatic change. (Genesis 1:16) says God made "two great lights" and leaves it at that. The Targum tells a completely different story. It says the sun and moon were originally equal in glory for exactly twenty-one years, minus 672 parts of an hour. Then the moon "recited against the sun a false report" and was punished by being diminished. The sun got promoted to the greater light. The moon got demoted. This is not translation. This is a cosmic courtroom drama inserted into the creation account, and it mirrors the Talmudic tradition in Chullin 60b where the moon complains to God and gets shrunk for her arrogance.
Then there is the question Genesis never answers directly. When God says "Let us make man" (Genesis 1:26), who is "us"? The Hebrew is ambiguous and has generated centuries of debate. The Targum settles it outright. God speaks "to the angels who ministered before Him, who had been created in the second day of the creation of the world." The angels were made on Day Two. The plural "us" is God consulting His angelic court, not a royal "we."
The Targum also adds that Adam was created with exactly 248 limbs and 365 sinews, numbers that later rabbinic tradition connects to the 248 positive commandments and 365 negative commandments of the Torah. The human body literally embodies the law.
Even the sea creatures get upgraded. Where Genesis mentions "great sea creatures," the Targum names them as the Leviathan and his mate, "prepared for the day of consolation," a reference to the messianic banquet where the righteous will feast on Leviathan's flesh. Every animal was also classified as clean or unclean from the moment of creation, centuries before Moses received the dietary laws at Sinai. The Targum retrofits the entire Torah into the first week of existence.