Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/71

35 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

35

™

teyuv for "iDfcO, pies of Aquila's methods are cig npoauira for Cith (Ps. cii. 26).*

The general

effect of this

from the following specimen

pedantry (II

Kings

t

t

1?D V:S? iTn K? ino31 133? ?33

mlT ?K

be seen

xxiii. 25)

Aquila.

Masoretic Text. t

may

and

^

Kal bfioios

avru ovk iyev^dy

} e lsirp6oumn>dvTovPcuHh>vc

3B> -ICN

.

£ v ff(ia? Kap(5( p aiToi Ka ^ ^ V n ® a73 ty vXV &VTOV KOi S»>.-** ^-s^"! j 'WU 7JJ1 1G73J 7JJ1 1 £ v tj-^^ £70orfp6r7?ri| avroii

/

'

TW12 miri ?33

-inDa

dp

^

innNi

Ka

™

j g//0

wavra vdpov Muaij

£f

ciT ^

In both the Cairo manuscripts the Tetragrammais not translated, but is transcribed in letters similar to those used in the Siloam inscription and on Jewish coins. J This quite unexpected feature is in full accord with the express statement of Origen,who says in his comments on Ps. ii. 2 (Benedictine ed " There is a certain xi. 36) ii. 539 = Lommatzsch, word of four letters which is not pronounced by them [the Jews], which also was written on the gold breastplate of the high priest but it is read as Adonai, not as it is really written in the four letters, while among Greeks it is pronounced Kvptoc [the Lord]. And in the more accurate copies this Name stands written not the modern Hebrew, but in Hebrew characters the ancient." There can be little doubt that by " the more accurate copies " Origen here refers to manuscripts of Aquila's translation. It would be a mistake to put down the harshness of Aquila's translation to ignorance of Greek. He resorted to mere transliteration less than any other ancient translator, and had Literal Trans- command of a large Greek vocabulary, Field (introduction, xxiii. et seq.) has mitter. collected a number of expressions that show Aquila's acquaintance with Homer and Herodton



methods

of exegesis

otus.

It

was no doubt from

classical

Greek

litera-

ture that Aquila borrowed the use of the enclitic 6e to express the toneless n of locality; for instance, virovde for rOJOH (Gen. xii. 9), 'Qipeipde for nTSIK The depth of his Hebrew knowl(I Bangs xxii. 49). edge is more open to question, if judged by modern But it is the special merit of Aquila's standards. renderings that they represent with great fidelity the state of Hebrew learning in his own day. " Aquila in a sense was not the sole and independent author of his version, its uncompromising literalism being

the necessary outcome of his Jewish teacher's system of exegesis" (C. Taylor, in Burkitt's "Frag-

ments of Aquila,"

p. vi.).




 * It will be noted that Aquila uses the

Greek article somewhat

freely to express / in cases where «is can not stand. t derivative of u^oSpa, " much," the regular rendering of

A

the adverb ind. will be noticed that the same corrupt form is used both for yod and for www, Just as in the Hexaplar form nini, i.e., nim, written in the square character.
 * See plate, left-hand column, three lines from bottom. It

to lay great stress

upon the meanings



Aquila as a Witness



1.

Consonantal

Text.

— The

extreme literalness of Aquila's methods enables the reader to restore with confidence the Hebrew from which he translated. There are a few instances where he preserves old readings found also in the Septuagint; e.g., DTIX for D~lK (Symmachus and Masoretic Text) in Ezek. xxvii. 16, and v|fl for vn (Masoretic Text) in Zeph. iii. 18. But as a rule he supports the ordinary Masoretic Text e.g., y 7rpoc/36?iuaig ardpara in I Sam. xiii. 21 implies D S B fWSBn as in the Masoretic Text, and KaTetpipero Kal appa km Ittttoq in Ps. lxxvi. 7 agrees with the Masoretic Text against the better reading IDTO DID '^i attested by the Septuagint. The numeration of the Psalms agrees with the Hebrew against the Greek in this article, therefore, Aquila is uniformly quoted by the Hebrew reckonings. 2. Aquila represents a period in Jewish exegesis Here priority anterior to the Masoretic vocalization.

in time does not invariably

mean

su-

Vocaliza- periority of reading where it is a question and tion of knowledge of Hebrew rather Interpreta- than of purity of transmitted text, the later scholars often do better than their tion. predecessors. Thus Aquila can hardly have been right in connecting D?p)V in Hab. i. 10 with alios, or in taking ypl in II Kings xxiii. 12 Aquila also has an as the Hiphil of p-| (" to run "). unfortunate habit of dividing rare Hebrew words into their real or imagined component parts; e.g., in Isa. xviii. 1 he renders Wyi ("a rustling") by ama ana, and in I Sam. vi. 8 for TJ1K3 of the Masoretic Text he has iv ixpei novpag, as if he had read T3 J1N3.

the other hand, there is much to be said for his nXDB^ (Ex. xxxii. 25) into two words. XIV Dts6 (" for a name of filth ") is read or implied by the Targum, by the Peshitta, and by Symmachus, as well as by Aquila (compare Isa. xxviii. 8, 13 xxx. The Samaritan has 1¥D6^>- In Deut. xxxiii. 2 22).

On

division of



Aquila has

irvp Soypa for

fH

B"K-

note that Aquila does not agree with the Masoretic punctuation in pointing the names of heathen gods (e.g., ]TDD and fP3, Amos v. 26) with the vowels of ppe> (" abomination "). It is interesting to

Aquila's renderings of the

Hebrew tenses are

often,

most inadequate. It is only on grounds of imperfect knowledge that the aorists can be defended in passages like

dependence on Jewish tradition are e.g., -u N3 to be lound in the Keri readings adopted by him for ij3, Gen. xxx. 11,' and the euphemism in Isa. xxxvl. 12. The scrupulous exactness with which Aquila translates the particles Is to be explained by his having been a disciple of Akiba, whose Illustrations of Aquila's

was

hidden in the lesser parts of speech. Instances are us KaTivavii. avrov for HJJ3, Gen. ii. 18 and airb lynaTtav aov for "p"ipO, Deut. iv. 3. This scrupulosity may be contrasted with the Targumic freedom of Aquila's qirtjjoreiitriiTd ,u.oi for 'oSriN, Jer. Ii. 34, where the metaphor that Nebuchadnezzar had " eaten " Jerusalem has been turned into prose.



—

Aquila

Kal

iiupivapbi;

irav

to

Kpdaoirov

HD-IKn 'JD

b

JIN

iirdnae

Ttjg

avipn x^ovd;

IWm pNH p


 * W

in.

for in

npJJ'

Gen.

ii.

Kal

"IM 6.

Examples of pedantic mistranslation such as this suggest that Old Hebrew was very imperfectly understood when Akiba revived philological study by his allegorizing exegesis of the particles. The transliterations of Hebrew words into Greek letters are of some interest as showing the pronunciation current in Palestine about the middle of the second century. The most noticeable points are the

complete disappearance of

all

four gutturals and the