Historical Background of Aquila

Aquila of Sinope, active around 150 C.E., produced one of the most distinctive Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. Known in scholarly literature by the siglum α, his version stands apart from the earlier Septuagint by adhering to a method of translation so literal that it borders on unintelligibility in Greek. Ancient testimonies identify Aquila as a Jewish proselyte, likely of Pontic origin, and a disciple of the influential Rabbi Akiva (c. 50–135 C.E.), one of the most prominent teachers of the early rabbinic movement. Aquila’s association with Akiva is significant, as Akiva’s interpretative methods strongly shaped rabbinic exegesis, emphasizing precise attention to every detail of the Hebrew text. It is therefore unsurprising that Aquila’s translation philosophy reflects this rabbinic emphasis on meticulous fidelity to the Hebrew original.

The historical context of Aquila’s work is critical. Following the Jewish-Roman wars of 66–70 C.E. and 132–135 C.E. (the Bar Kokhba revolt), Jewish communities distanced themselves from the Septuagint. Originally embraced by Jews in the Hellenistic world, the Septuagint had by this time become the Old Testament of the Christian church. Christians often cited the Septuagint in debates with Jews, and its renderings were sometimes employed to support messianic interpretations of Jesus. As a result, Jewish communities no longer considered the Septuagint an authoritative witness to the Hebrew text. Aquila’s translation, therefore, must be understood as part of the Jewish response: a conscious effort to produce a Greek version that strictly aligned with the Hebrew consonantal text and resisted Christian appropriation.

Methodology of Aquila’s Translation

Aquila’s hallmark is his rigidly literal translation technique. Unlike the Septuagint, which often rendered idioms or phrases in ways that made sense in Greek, Aquila’s method preserved the Hebrew word order, grammar, and lexical repetition. He consistently employed the same Greek equivalent for a given Hebrew term, even if the Greek result sounded awkward or unnatural. This approach effectively created a “Hebraizing Greek,” in which the syntax and semantics reflected the structure of Hebrew more than the conventions of Greek.

An example of Aquila’s methodology is seen in his rendering of the Hebrew term nephesh. Whereas the Septuagint sometimes translated this as psychē in ways that captured its contextual meaning (“life,” “soul,” or “person”), Aquila consistently rendered it with psychē regardless of whether this conveyed natural Greek sense. His unwavering adherence to equivalence reveals that his purpose was not elegance or accessibility but rather precision and alignment with the Hebrew consonantal text.

This literalism made his translation especially valuable for rabbinic circles, who viewed the Scriptures as containing layers of meaning in every word and even in every letter. Aquila’s translation, therefore, functioned almost as an interlinear aid, allowing Greek-speaking Jews with limited Hebrew to study the Scriptures while still tethered to the Hebrew original. For this reason, Aquila’s version has been described not as a translation in the conventional sense but rather as a tool of exegesis, one meant to safeguard the text against interpretative liberties.

Reception and Use of Aquila’s Version

Patristic sources testify that Aquila’s translation was known and used widely. Church Fathers such as Origen (c. 184–253 C.E.) incorporated Aquila’s version into his Hexapla, the monumental six-column comparison of the Hebrew Bible and its various Greek translations. In the Hexapla, Aquila’s column was essential because of its extreme fidelity to the Hebrew. Origen valued it precisely for its accuracy, though he also recognized that it was often obscure to readers unfamiliar with Hebrew.

Jerome (c. 347–420 C.E.), in his Latin writings, also praised Aquila’s precision and used his version to help clarify Hebrew readings when producing the Latin Vulgate. While Jerome did not regard Aquila’s translation as accessible, he considered it an indispensable tool for achieving exact knowledge of the Hebrew text.

Within Jewish circles, Aquila’s work appears to have supplanted the Septuagint entirely. By the 2nd century C.E., his version served as the standard Greek Bible for Jewish communities in the Diaspora. This further underscores its function as a defense of the Hebrew text against Christian interpretations that relied on the Septuagint.

Aquila’s Place in Textual Criticism

For the textual critic of the Old Testament, Aquila’s translation remains invaluable. While his rigid literalism sometimes distorts Greek sense, it provides a near-transliteration of the Hebrew Vorlage. This allows scholars to reconstruct the precise Hebrew text that stood behind his translation. In cases where Aquila diverges from the Masoretic Text, his readings offer evidence of Hebrew variants that circulated in the 2nd century C.E.

The importance of Aquila increases when compared with other Jewish revisions of the Septuagint, such as those by Symmachus and Theodotion. Whereas Symmachus preferred an elegant, idiomatic Greek, and Theodotion produced a smoother revision blending literalism with readability, Aquila stood at the extreme end of the spectrum. His translation philosophy was less concerned with the literary quality of the Greek and entirely devoted to representing the Hebrew with uncompromising accuracy. This made his work essential for rabbinic study and later textual research.

Fragments of Aquila’s version have survived in quotations from Church Fathers, marginal glosses in manuscripts, and papyrus finds in the Judean desert. These fragments, though limited, confirm the consistency of his method. They also provide strong corroboration for the stability of the Hebrew consonantal text, as Aquila’s translation reflects a Vorlage remarkably close to the later Masoretic Text.

Conclusion: The Legacy of Aquila’s Literalism

Aquila’s Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (siglum α) represents one of the earliest and most deliberate Jewish efforts to safeguard the Hebrew text in a context of Christian-Jewish polemics. Produced around 150 C.E. under the influence of Rabbi Akiva, Aquila’s work displays a radical literalism that makes the Hebrew visible through the Greek. While this often produced an awkward and opaque Greek text, it ensured that Jewish readers would remain anchored to the Hebrew, resisting interpretive liberties characteristic of the Septuagint.

For modern textual criticism, Aquila’s translation provides a crucial witness to the state of the Hebrew Bible in the 2nd century C.E., reflecting readings consistent with the Masoretic tradition while also preserving traces of early variants. Though no longer in active use after Late Antiquity, Aquila’s translation continues to serve as a tool for scholars, illustrating both the Jewish commitment to the Hebrew text and the role of literal translation in the preservation of Scripture.

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