Aquila of Sinope
2nd century translator of the Hebrew Bible into Greek
Aquila (Hebrew: עֲקִילַס ʿăqīlas, fl. 130 CE) of Sinope (modern-day Sinop, Turkey; Latin: Aquila Ponticus) was a translator of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, a proselyte, and disciple of Rabbi Akiva.
Relationship to Onkelos
Opinions differ on whether he was the same person as Onkelos, who composed the leading Aramaic translation of the Torah known as the Targum Onkelos. The names "Onkelos the proselyte" and "Aquilas the proselyte" are frequently interchanged in the Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud.
It is unclear how much (if any) of the Aramaic translation was based on the Greek.
Greek translation
Only fragments of this translation have survived in what remains of fragmentary documents taken from the Books of Kings and the Psalms found in the old Cairo Geniza in Fustat, Egypt, while excerpts taken from the Hexapla written in the glosses of certain manuscripts of the Septuagint were collected earlier and published by Frederick Field in his influential work, Origenis Hexaplorum quæ Supersunt, Oxford, 1875. Epiphanius' On Weights and Measures preserves a tradition that he was a kinsman of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who employed him in rebuilding Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, and that Aquila was converted from Roman paganism to Christianity but, on being reproved for practicing astrology, converted from Christianity to Judaism. He is said also to have been a disciple of Rabbi Akiva (d. ca. 132 CE).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Aquila of Sinope” is 2nd century translator of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Aquila, Sinope and century, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q335117. VIAF identifies the subject as 22932378. The Library of Congress control number is n96116126. 2 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1875.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aquila of Sinope” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.