Man living at the time of the New Testament
Theudas was a Jewish rebel leader who was killed, and his followers scattered, by the Roman authorities.
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Theudas is mentioned in Act.5.36 as an example of a failed messianic pretender. According to Gamaliel, a respected Pharisee, Theudas rose up claiming to be somebody important and gathered about four hundred men to follow him. However, he was killed, and his followers were dispersed, resulting in the failure of his movement. Gamaliel used Theudas and another rebel named Judas the Galilean as cautionary examples to dissuade the Jewish council from persecuting the apostles. He argued that if the apostles' movement was of human origin, it would fail like those of Theudas and Judas.
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Thanksgiving, referred to by Gamaliel in his speech before the council at Jerusalem (Acts 5:36). He headed an insurrection against the Roman authority. Beyond this nothing is known of him.
(God-given), the name of an insurgent mentioned in Gamaliel’s speech before the Jewish council, (Acts 6:35-39) at the time of the arraignment of the apostles. He appeared, according to Luke’s account, at the head of about four hundred men. He was probably one of the insurrectionary chiefs or fanatics by whom the land was overrun in the last year of Herod’s reign. Josephus speaks of a Theudas who played a similar part in the time of Claudius, about A.D. 44; but the Theudas mentioned by St. Luke must be a different person from the one spoken of by Josephus.
THEU'DAS (thanksgiving), an insurrectionary chieftain mentioned by Gamaliel. Acts 5:36, Josephus mentions a similar character of this name, but his insurrection occurred some eleven years after Gamaliel's speech. An explanation of the difficulty is to identify Theudas with Matthias, an eloquent and popular Jewish teacher, who headed a band in the days of Herod and destroyed the Roman eagle set up by the king over the great gate of the temple, being outraged by Herod's impiety. "The name 'Matthias' in Greek would be 'Theodorus,' and this is equivalent to 'Theudas.'" But perhaps it is best to say that this Theudas was an obscure individual who is not mentioned elsewhere. The name was a common one.
THEU'DAS (thanksgiving), an insurrectionary chieftain mentioned by Gamaliel. Acts 5:36, Josephus mentions a similar character of this name, but his insurrection occurred some eleven years after Gamaliel's speech. An explanation of the difficulty is to identify Theudas with Matthias, an eloquent and popular Jewish teacher, who headed a band in the days of Herod and destroyed the Roman eagle set up by the king over the great gate of the temple, being outraged by Herod's impiety. "The name 'Matthias' in Greek would be 'Theodorus,' and this is equivalent to 'Theudas.'" But perhaps it is best to say that this Theudas was an obscure individual who is not mentioned elsewhere. The name was a common one.
Easton (1897), Smith (1863), Hitchcock (1869), Hastings (1898) and Schaff are in the public domain. Parsed text: neuu-org/bible-dictionary-dataset (CC BY 4.0). Headwords and whitespace normalised for this site.
1 verse in 1 book · English text: BSB (change it from the menu at the top) · Strong’s G2333
Some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men joined him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing.
Names, family links and references: STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House Cambridge, CC BY 4.0). Short descriptions were drafted with AI assistance by STEPBible. Family links follow STEPBible’s scholarly decisions where genealogies are ambiguous.