Tag: Gamaliel

Gamaliel the Elder (English pronunciation: /ɡəˈmeɪljəl/), or Rabban Gamaliel I (רבן גמליאל הזקן; Greek: Γαμαλιήλ ο Πρεσβύτερος), was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin in the mid 1st century CE. He was the grandson of the great Jewish teacher Hillel the Elder, and died twenty years before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (70 CE). He fathered a son, whom he called Simeon, after his father, and a daughter, whose daughter (i.e., Gamaliel’s granddaughter) married a priest named Simon ben Nathanael. The name Gamaliel is the Greek form of the Hebrew name meaning reward of God.
In the Christian tradition, Gamaliel is celebrated as a Pharisee doctor of Jewish Law. Acts of the Apostles speaks of Gamaliel as a man of great respect who spoke in favor of arrested Christian apostles and the Jewish Law teacher of Paul the Apostle.
In the Talmud, Gamaliel is described as bearing the titles Nasi and Rabban (our master), as the president of the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem;…