Aquila's Greek Version

Aquila's Greek version is a major second-century Jewish retranslation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, celebrated for its exceptionally close adherence to Hebrew form. Made directly from the Hebrew, with the Hebrew Bible as its base text, it was originally broad or complete in scope, covering the Hebrew Bible. Its translation philosophy was extremely literal and Hebraizing, and it is regarded as a fresh translation rather than a revision, though the Septuagint stood as its predecessor within Greek Bible culture and remained the point of comparison against which it was read. Among its distinctive features, it often preserves Hebrew morphology and syntax at the expense of natural Greek, mirroring the structure of the source language word by word. It circulated among Greek-speaking Jews and was later drawn upon by Christian scholars concerned with the relation of the Greek Bible to the Hebrew text, surviving today largely in fragments and citations.