• Church Quarterly Review, l.c. pp. 219, 22ft. i li.cii.p. 3661.
VERSIONS, GREEK
VERSIONS, GREEK
865
stanlly brought to liglit. A number are to be found in tlie third volume of Pitra's Analecta Sacra, and also in the 3rd volume of Swete's OT in Greek. The last fragments which have been pub- lished are the greater part of two verses of Gu 1, which is to be found in part i. of Grenfell and Hunt's Amiierst Greek Paj)i/ri, and a fragment of Ps 21 (22) in Dr. Taylor's Cairo Geniiah Palimp- sests (Cambridge Press).
Considerable diftlculties beset the student in his considera- tion of lliose fra^oiienUj that sliU remain. (1) lu variuiia MSS the same wortls are ascribed in one c:i£e to one translator, in another to another; whilst in other coses, and sometimes very questionably, the same translation is attributed to all in common. (2) Owin^ to Ori^'eu's well-meant but unfortunate editing of the text of the LX.\, ami the loss of or confusion in the diacritical marks which he inserted in his text ; and owinj also tot he \*ariou80tiier recensions and re-editiri[is which the text of the Septuo^nt has sutfered fnjni, we ore quite in the dark as to how much of these other Greek versions may be embedded in our present Greek texts of the L.KX. To take an inst.ince. If with our present limited sources of information we examine the two chapters of the Book of Ju<lKes which relate the history of i>boruh, and compare the Vatican text of the Cambridge edition with the fraguients printed by Field, we shall tlnd at least thirteen expressions (4" [two] '■'- 21 .'il. U 16.21.26 [three] 23 [twoD attributed to versions other than the Septuagrint. This may perhaps be an extreme cose, taken as it is from a book in which the forms of the text vary so much, and as to which ques- tions may be raised conceminR the date of the sjiecial text, but it will at any rate serve as an ilh-.stralion of how complicated the phenomena of the present Urcek texta of the OT are In other ca^es, where a double or even triple rendering ot the Hebrew occurs, we shall probabl> not '^o wTong in assipning, at least in some cases, one or more (^f these alternative transla- tions to other versions than the LX.\.
Orih'en 8 great work itself seems to have taken various iorms besides the most prevalent Uexaplaric one. We find mention of (a) a Trtrajtla, containing the four Greek versions; (6) a P^ntapta of doubtful content ; (c, d) a Ueptapla and an Octapla, which apparently contained the fifth and sixth anonymous Greek versions. Specimens of the way in which these were respectively arranged are to be found in F'ield's Prolegomena 1pp. xiv, xv) : while Mercati fives an actual extract from a Ifexapla SIS in his * Vn palimpsesto Ambrosiano' in Atti di R. Aecaaetttia di Scienza dt Torino, April 10. Ib06(see also T.iylor's frai^nient of I's 21 [22] from the Cairo Palimpsest, printed on p. 444 of the present volume).
AVe piu>s to the separate translations and their authors.
(1) Aquila's Verxion. — Tliere seems to be no good reason for doubting that this was certainly the oldest of these Greek versions. It most prob- ably had its origin in a desire for a faithful and literal translation of the OT by an orthodo.\ person holding the Jewish faitli. The name Aquila is one familiar to us in the pages of the NT. The Acjuila of our present notice, like his Scripture namesake, was a native of Pontus, and is said to h.ave belonged to Sinope. He is called a proselyte, and the story goes that he nitde his translation in the reign of Hadrian (c. I'M) a.d.) after the return of the Christians from Pella to that city. He is said to have been a rmpil of the famous Rabbi Al^iba. Attempts have lieen made to identify him with the OnVelos of the Targum of Onl^elos, but they have not at present met with general acceptance.
In translating the OT, Aquila seems to have ajiproachcd his task from the point of view of an orlliodo.v Jew holding the plenary inspiration of every ' jot and tittle.' Accordingly, his aim was so lo translate that for every Hebrew word or particle there should always be an equivalent. The results of his method sometimes become grotesque. Thus having translated 03 by the Greek Koi-ye, when the conjunction is pretixed to CJ and the word becomes OJi, Aquila translates xai Ktdyt. The particle hk being identical with the prejiosition n« is also translated avp, so that we have such an extra- ordinary solecism as ai/v followed by the accusa- tive case.
How far Aquila is controversial against the Christians in any of his renderings is a matter of dispute. Tregelles considers tiiis to be proved against him, whilst Field absolves him. The only passage which really seems to support Tregelles'
view is Aquila's translation of Is 7'*, where for the ■wapdivoi of the LXX he substitutes veans, a much less dehnite word than irapO^voi — a translation which would have the support of many modern Christian critics.
His translation shows few traces of any reading's dill'ering from the unpointed Hebrew te.xt now in existence. In a few cases his division of Hebrew words is not the same. His vocalization, how- ever, dili'ers in a considerable number of instances from the Massorete.s. As between J^irS and Killiihh, he more often follows I^cre. It is to bo noted also that he, together with Synimaehus, follows the euphemism of the Hebrew margin in Is 36". In his choice of words to represent the Hebrew, Aquila goes far afield. He attempts to indicate! the literal meaning of words bv correspond- ing Greek words, e.g. iTiaTrnjLovl^ety. He draws, as other Greek writers of the period do, a certain portion of his vocabulary from the old Greek epic poetry. He also uses Greek words of similar sound to the Hebrew, instead of actually trans- literating. He transliterates the totr.-igraminaton by the archaic form of the four Hebrew letters, a form which ajipears in Hexaplaric Greek JISS as Ilini (PIPI).