Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 04/08/2005 12:27, Awohili AT aol.com wrote:

> You characterize Aquila as "hyper-literal," others say Aquila wished 
> to be more faithful to the Hebrew text.


Well, the latter is of course true. But Rahlfs, in his "History of the 
Septuagint Text" at the start of his edition of LXX, wrote:

> Aquila, a Greek proselyte and a disciple of Akiba, rendered every 
> detail of the sacred Text as precisely as possible into Greek, and he 
> did not shrink from perpetrating the most appalling outrages to the 
> whole essence of the Greek language.
>
> We are provided in the very first verse of the Bible with a classical 
> example of his translating. The LXX had rendered it into correct and 
> good Greek by ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν. This 
> translation was, however, very far from being accurate enough for 
> Aquila's tastes. The etymology of the Hebrew ראשית [ R)#YT ] did not 
> find an expression in ἀρχή [ ARCH ]; Aquila, however, aimed at 
> providing a rendering of all Hebrew derivatives which should be 
> accurate, even in regard to etymology. He therefore translated ראשית 
> as a derivative of ראש [ R)# ] by κεφάλαιον [ KEFALAION ], being a 
> derivative of κεφαλή [ KEFALH ]. It did not matter that the Greek word 
> κεφάλαιον did not mean "Beginning" but "Chief point" or "Sum" etc. ... 
> Finally, there came in the LXX the words τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν; 
> Aquila, in order to have a special Greek rendering even for את [ )T ], 
> wrote σὺν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ σὺν τὴν γῆν [ SUN TON OURANON KAI SUN THN 
> GHN ]. ...


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/