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Bible Dictionaries
Theudas
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Theudas is mentioned only once in the NT. In Acts 5:36 Gamaliel counsels moderation in the treatment of the Christians, citing Theudas’s career as evidence that a movement which is not of God will come to naught of itself. Regarding Theudas we are told that he claimed to be a unique person and drew to himself about four hundred followers, but the uprising was soon crushed and the leader slain. This incident is said to have taken place some time before the days of Judas of Galilee, who led a revolt at the time of ‘the enrolment.’
These statements in themselves occasion no particular difficulty. It is only when they are placed beside similar statements in Josephus that any problem arises. In Ant. XX. v. 1f. Josephus mentions a certain Theudas who set himself up as a prophet and persuaded a large number of persons to follow him to the Jordan, where he said he would stay the waters by his word and lead his followers across on dry land. But Fadus, the procurator of Judaea (from a.d. 44 to c. [Note: . circa, about.] 46), sent out a band of horsemen, who scattered or slew Theudas’s followers, captured their leader, cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem. Soon afterwards Fadus’s successor, Alexander, put to death two sons of Judas of Galilee-the Judas who had raised an insurrection when Quirinius made an enrolment of the Jews. In another connexion Josephus describes this revolt, which occurred in a.d. 6-7 (Ant. XVIII. i. 1, 6, Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) II. viii. 1).
The agreement between Acts and Josephus with respect to Judas is apparent, although it is not certain that they have exactly the same date in mind (cf. Luke 2:1 ff.). They are also in general agreement as to the performance and fate of Theudas, but they differ very radically as to his date. Josephus places him nearly forty years after Judas, and thus subsequent to the time of Gamaliel, while Acts makes Theudas precede Judas. It is this chronological discrepancy that constitutes the chief difficulty in the interpretation of Acts 5:36.
Various solutions of the problem have been proposed:
(1) It has often been assumed that Acts and Josephus refer to two different persons, and that Josephus’s failure to mention the incident recorded in Acts is not a sufficient reason for doubting the latter. This explanation seems to have been current as early as the time of Origen (cf. c. Cels. i. 57), and it still has many advocates.
(2) Others, while also believing that Acts 5:36 and Jos. Ant. XX. v. 1 refer to different events, seek to discover elsewhere in Josephus an incident corresponding to that of Acts. Theudas is thought to have been one of the many revolutionists mentioned in Josephus by some other name. He has been identified with the Simon who is found among the disturbers arising soon after the death of Herod the Great (Ant. XVII. x. 6, Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) II. iv. 2). This was the opinion of Sonntag (‘Theudas der Aufrührer’ in SK [Note: K Studien und Kritiken.] x. [1837] 622-652). K. Wieseler (Chronologischer Synopse der vier Evangelien, Gotha, 1843, p. 103 ff., Beiträge zur richtigen Würdigung der Evangelien und der evangelischen Geschichte, do., 1869, p. 101 ff.) equates the Theudas of Acts with Matthias (θευδᾶς = θεόδωρος = מַתִּיָה), who in the last days of Herod’s reign incited his pupils to pull down the golden eagle which had been placed over the great gate of the Temple (Ant. XVII. vi. 2-4, Bellum Judaicum (Josephus) I. xxxiii. 2-4).
(3) Still other interpreters think the Theudas incidents of Acts and of Josephus are so similar in general content that they must have been originally identical, but it is Josephus, they hold, rather than Acts that is erroneous. So J. D. Michaelis (Einleitung in die göttlichen Schriften des Neuen Bundes4, Göttingen, 1788, i. 62 f.), who says that Josephus is correct in mentioning an uprising under Fadus, but wrong in making Theudas the leader. More recently F. Blass (Acta Apostolorum, Göttingen, 1895, p. 89) explains the difficulty by assuming a textual corruption in Josephus. Originally he had given no name, or else a different one, and some Christian copyist under the influence of Acts 5:36 introduced the name of Theudas.
(4) Another type of explanation ascribes the error to Acts. B. Weiss would make the reference to Theudas a redactional interpolation (Lehrbuch der Einleitung in das NT2, Berlin, 1889, p. 574, n. [Note: . note.] 4). Other analysts would also derive the verse about Judas from a secondary source. But most scholars who find Acts at fault think the error a part of the original composition and due to the author’s defective knowledge of Josephus. Dependence upon Joseph us has been argued most fully by M. Krenkel (Josephus und Lucas, Leipzig, 1894, pp. 162-174) and P. W. Schmiedel (article ‘Theudas’ in Encyclopaedia Biblica ). Josephus, it will be remembered, after referring to Theudas’s fate, goes on to remark that soon afterwards the sons of Judas of Galilee were put to death. The author of Acts, so the argument runs, had vaguely remembered, or carelessly noted, the succession ‘Theudas … Judas,’ without precisely observing that Josephus was speaking in this connexion not of the fate of the well-known Judas but of that of the sons of Judas. This oversight, accordingly, resulted in the anachronism of Acts 5:36.
Literature.-All the important commentaries on Acts discuss the present subject. See also, in addition to treatises already referred to, H. Holtzmann, ‘Lucas und Josephus’ in ZWT [Note: WT Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie.] xvi. [1873] 85-93 and xx. [1877] 535-549; T. Keim, Aus dem Urchristentum, Zürich, 1878, i. 18-21; J. Belser, ‘Lukas und Josephus,’ in Theol. Quartalschrift, lxxviii. [1896] 1-78 (esp. pp. 61-71); W. M. Ramsay, Was Christ born at Bethlehem?, London, 1898, pp. 252-260; E. Schürer, GJV [Note: JV Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes (Schürer).] i.4 [Leipzig, 1901] 566 (and literature cited in note 6).
S. J. Case.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Theudas'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/t/theudas.html. 1906-1918.
