Re: Aquila of Pontus' Greek OT
Carlton Winbery (winberyc@alex1.linknet.net)
Mon, 13 Jan 1997 19:17:50 +0400
Andrew Bromage wrote;
>
>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?
>
No, this is not the same Aquila as in Acts. Almost any history of the
Bible will deal with the Aquila translation of the OT into Greek. F.F.
Bruce (The Books and the Parchments) indicates that it was a sort of
replacement translation for the LXX after the Jews rejected it. He
indicates that they did not translate the Hebrew covenant name for God but
carried the Hebrew characters YHWH into Greek. Eusebius, I think,
mentioned some Greeks who mistook it for PIPI and called the God of the
Jews, Pipi. It was a much more literal translation from what is thought to
have been the forerunner of the Massoretic text. Hans von Campenhausen,
The Formation of the Christian Bible, also dealt with Aquila.
Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
Fax (318) 442-4996
Phone (318) 487-7241