Gamaliel

Liberals, as well as outright unbelievers, deny the inspiration and accuracy of Luke. Yet, generally speaking, their evidence comes down to just two or three threadbare examples: the genealogy, the census, and Theudas (Acts 5:36-37).

But if Luke really was an uninspired writer, more concerned with theology than history, the list ought to be far longer.

Moreover, we should expect to run across a few obscurities in a book written 2000 years ago. We are not the target audience. What was common knowledge for the original reader is often lost on us.

I’ve discussed the census and the genealogy in my review of TET. But what about Theudas?

The allegation is that Luke committed an anachronism by dating the leader of this revolt too early, contrary to the later date assigned to him by Josephus.

If you run through the liberal to conservative scholarship, you are generally presented with one of three options: (i) Luke was wrong; (ii) Josephus was wrong; (iii) Gamaliel was referring to another Theudas.

But there’s another option I haven’t seen debated. Let’s remember that Luke isn’t speaking for himself. He's not stating what he thinks really took place.

Rather, he's quoting someone else. He's reporting what was actually said, not what actually happened (according to the source he's quoting).

Why is it not equally possible that Gamaliel misspoke? After all, Luke is quoting (or summarizing) an extemporaneous speech. People often misspeak when they talk off-the-cuff—especially when they cite some news item or historical incident from memory.

Gamaliel wasn't delivering a prepared speech. Rather, he was ad libbing.

And although we don't know how old he was, it's a safe bet that he was getting up in years.

Some commentators conjecture that he was naming a different man by the same name.

Why not conjecture that he was misnaming the individual in question?

As the commentators point out, there were quite a few revolutionaries or insurgents during the period in question.

Admittedly, that's speculative on my part, but any explanation or harmonization is speculative at this juncture—from liberal (Luke was wrong) to conservative (Josephus was wrong, or Gamaliel was referring to another man by the same name). So it's not as if a conservative explanation is special pleading while a liberal explanation has the hard evidence in its favor.

We're more likely to correctly remember an event, but misremember a name than the other way round—especially when we're speaking impromptu. Recall the gist of the event even if we're fuzzy on the details.

Not to mention if we're getting up in years. I'm not saying he (Gamaliel) was senile, but when you live long enough, things tend to become a bit of a blur precisely because you've lived through so very much.

And, again, he was speaking off the top of his head.

If this is the true explanation, then, ironically, in would be a mark of Luke's accuracy rather than inaccuracy by accurately reporting an inaccurate statement.

Out of curiosity, I ran this explanation by Craig Blomberg, who agreed with me that this was a reasonable option.