Ananias:

By: Gerson B. Levi

This name stands in the Septuagint and New Testament as the equivalent for different Hebrew names, one (I.) with initial ח and the other (II.) with initial ע.

• I. 1. Son of Emmer who put aside his foreign wife (I Esd. ix. 21)=Hanani (Ezra, x. 20). 2. In the same list as above (I Esd. ix. 29) = Hananiah (Ezra, x. 28). 3. A Levite who taught the Law (I Esd. ix. 48) = Hanan (Neh. viii. 7).
• II. 1. Mentioned in I Esd. ix. 43 = 'Anaiah (Neh. viii. 4). 2. Father of Azarias, whose son Gabriel declared himself when he appeared to Tobit (Tobit, v. 12). 3. An ancestor of Judith (Judith, viii. 1).
• III. The Ananias mentioned in Acts v. as having defrauded the apostles and as having been punished by sudden death, as was also the case with his wife, Sapphira. It is uncertain with what initial his name was pronounced.