Gamaliel Never Existed

[Nimzo]

It is commonly claimed (e.g. here) that "Gamaliel" (referred to as "Gamaliel the Elder" or "Rabbi Gamaliel I") was the "first president of the Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem" during the mid-first century. But the only possible first century reference there is to this figure is Acts 5:34, which never even says who it was written by, or when it was written down! What's more, this Christian source claims that Gamaliel spoke in the defence of Christians - clearly whoever the author of Acts is has written this Jewish figure into the story to give his tribe of Christians some credibility.

Even more amazingly, not only are there no Greco-Roman sources for this Jewish character, there are not even any Jewish sources for him in the first century! Despite alledgedly being a person of great importance, Josephus completely fails to mention his existence. In fact, the first references to him are found in Jewish traditions written hundreds of years after he is said to have lived, and are clearly biased (the traditions are handed down by Jews after all) in favour of "Gamaliel's" supposed life.

What follows from all of this? Clearly "Gamaliel" has been invented, either by Christians with the agenda of Jewish proselytization and then later adopted by Jews in rebuttal of Christian claims, or by Jews attempting to establish their current Rabbis with some kind of authority (it is no coincidence that Gamaliel is claimed to have been the first leader called a "Rabban" in Jewish traditions) and given new life by the author of Acts to lend credibility to his apologetically-floundering Christian clan (though we should notice the rhetorical flourish the author uses by demoting him to simply a "teacher of the law"). "Rabbi Gamaliel I" simply never existed as a real person of history at all.