Re: Aquila of Pontus' Greek OT

David L. Moore (dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com)
Mon, 13 Jan 1997 20:17:04 -0500

At 10:11 AM 1/14/97 +1100, Andrew Bromage wrote:
>G'day all.
>
>I was leafing through the preface to the New Jerusalem Bible and came
>across this abbreviation:
>
> Aq. Aquila of Pontus, and the Greek text of the Old
> Testament according to his recension, early second
> century AD.
>
>I assume this is the same AKULA from Acts 18:2 etc.
>
>I hadn't heard of this text before. Does anyone know the story behind
>it, references I could look up or maybe even if the text is available?
>

The Aquila who is known for his translation of the Hebrew Scriptures
into Greek is not the Aquila of the book of Acts. Most books on Old
Testament textual criticism have at least a short blurb on him (e.g. Ernst
Wu:rthwein, _The Text of the Old Testament_ [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979],
p. 53). He lived in the 2nd Century A.D., was a Jewish proselyte and
produced a slavishly literal, although precise, translation of the OT into
Greek. I don't think there is any complete edition of his translation
available, since it is known mainly from quotations in other works and from
fragments of it that have been found from time to time.

All the best,

David L. Moore Director
Miami, Florida, USA Department of Education
dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com Southeastern Spanish District
http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore of the Assemblies of God