Science Fair Project Encyclopedia Onkelos is mentioned several
times in the Talmud. According to the traditional Jewish
sources, he was a prominent Roman nobleman, a nephew of the
Roman emperor Titus. His conversion is the subject of a story
whereupon he first consulted with the spirits of three deceased
enemies of Israel to see how Israel fared in the next world
(Gittin 56b). The first was his uncle Titus, who was blamed for
the destruction of the Second Temple; the second was the seer
Balaam, hired by Balak king of Moab to curse Israel; and the
last was Yeshu, a name used for those who sought to lead Jews
astray to idolatry, in particular an idolatrous former student
of Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah in the Hasmonean period. Onkelos
is said to have seen all of them subject to humiliating
punishments for harming Israel. All three urged Onkelos to
complete his conversion. (Some sources give the subject of these
stories as Aquila, a convert to Judaism who translated the Bible
in Greek. The stories may then have be