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Bible Dictionaries
Gamaliel
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or 1. Numbers 1:10; Numbers 2:20; Numbers 7:54-59; Numbers 10:23.
2. A Pharisee and eminent doctor of the law, who advised the council wisely to let the apostles alone (Acts 5:34, etc.), "for if this counsel or work be of men it will come to nought; but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." He was Paul's teacher, "at whose feet he was brought up and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers" (Acts 22:3). The Jews celebrated him as "the glory of the law," the first designated Rabban "our master."
Son of rabbi Simeon, and grandson of Hillel; president of the Sanhedrin under Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius; he died 18 years before the fall of Jerusalem. His counsel as to the apostles was not from any leaning to Christianity, but from opposition to Sadduceeism in a case where the resurrection was the point at issue, and from seeing the folly of unreasoning bigotry (Acts 23:6-9). Saul his pupil was a leading persecutor when Stephen opposed Pharisaism; and probably Gamaliel would not altogether disapprove of his zeal in such a cause, though his own tendency was to leave the claims of Christianity to be tested by time.
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Gamaliel'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/g/gamaliel.html. 1949.
