THEUDAS thōō’ dəs (Θευδᾶς, G2554, a contraction of Θεόδωρος, gift of God or some such name). Leader of a rebellion that failed (Acts 5:35, 36). He is mentioned in a speech before the Sanhedrin by Gamaliel who cautions them to be tolerant of the apostles lest they be found opposing God. He reasons that if the apostolic activity were of human origin only, it would fail of itself; but if it were of divine origin, nothing they did could stop it. The death of Theudas and the dispersion of his four hundred followers is cited as a basis for Gamaliel’s thesis.

Josephus (Antiq. XX. 5. 1) tells of Theudas, a magician around a.d. 44 who led a great band of adherents to the Jordan, promising to divide it for an easy passage of the river, but was caught and beheaded by the soldiers of the procurator Fadus. This cannot have been the same Theudas as the insurgent of Gamaliel’s speech (a.d. 30 or 31) who is said to have arisen before the insurrection led by Judas the Galilaean in the days of the taxing under Quirinius about a.d. 6. This and other differences separate Luke’s account and that of Josephus (see the full discussion in Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, III, 132, 133). It is not necessary to impugn Luke’s historical accuracy here by assuming that he transposed Theudas and Judas, or that he misplaced Gamaliel’s speech by moving it from ch. 12 where an angel assisted Peter’s escape from prison under Herod Agrippa (King, a.d. 41-44), to ch. 5 where the same thing happens at an earlier date (J. W. Swain, “Gamaliel’s Speech and Caligula’s Statue,” ETR, 37 [1944], 341-349). Nor did Luke misread Josephus, who did not publish his Antiquities until a.d. 93. There could have been more than one Theudas leading the “ten thousand other disorders” mentioned by Josephus (Antiq. XVII. 10. 4).

Bibliography E. Schürer, A. History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, I, ii (1891), 168, 169; W. M. Ramsay, Was Christ Born at Bethlehem? (1898), 258, 259; J. W. Swain, “Gamaliel’s Speech and Caligula’s Statue,” HTR, 37 (1944), 341-349; R. B. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles, 14th ed. (1951), 74.