I did address it. I provided 2 URLs saying he died after 60 CE. The URL provided by you said 73 CE. You have provided no URL claiming a date of 50-52 CE for the death of Gamaliel.

“Note that BA didn’t reference the CRC “Rubber Book” in his post on organic compounds on Enceladus, but we would be amiss to take that as an indication that the “Rubber Book” doesn’t exist.”

If BA was using numbers from the CRC book and was challenged on them by some contrarian poster (e.g., myself), I bet he would mention that his source was the CRC book. Paul was being constantly challenged and sometimes even physically assaulted during his preaching. It would have been very advantageous for him to use material obtained from an actual eyewitness to the founder of his religion.

“the early church claimed the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew”

So the Q Gospel is fanciful but a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew is not?

The best URL I’ve been able to find on the supposed Gamaliel parody is:
http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=382786

Apparently the whole matter was brought to public attention in a 1999 book by Israel Yuval entitled: “Passover And Easter: Origin And History To Modern Times”. Some quotes from the web site:

“Rabban Gamaliel, a leader of rabbinical scholars in about 70 A.D., is “considered to have authored a sophisticated parody of the Gospel according to Matthew.”"

This may not be Gamaliel I being talked about at all, but rather his son Gamaliel II who was the leader of the Sanhedrin after the sack of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Gamaliel I is known to have been sympathetic to early Christians but not so his son. It is doubtful that Gamaliel I would have composed a biting satire about people whom he was sympathetic to.

“Jesus is called a Nazarene, one of the names given him. Another dubs him Yeshua Ben Pandira, which means Jesus born-of-a-virgin in a combination of Hebrew and Greek.”

Born of a virgin? Remember, these are orthodox Jews who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. It would have been blasphemy for them to say that anyone had a divine birth.

“In Rabbi Gamaliel´s story, a daughter whose father had died offers a golden lamp as a bribe to a Christian judge known for his honesty, seeking a decision that would allow her to share her father´s estate with her brother. When the judge suggests that dividing the estate would be proper on the basis of a new law that had superseded the ancient Law of Moses, Gamaliel argues that the judge is wrong and loosely quotes a statement attributed to Jesus´ Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. “Look further in the book, and it is written in it, ´I have not come to take away from the Law of Moses nor add to the Law of Moses … ´” Gamaliel replies, and wins the case on the basis of that argument or the bribe he gave the judge — a “Libyan ass.” The Libyan ass itself is a reference to Jesus and the mount he rode into Jerusalem.”

The actual verses in the King James Bible this is supposedly a parody of are:

Matthew 5:17:
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”

Matthew 21:7:
“And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.”

The first supposed allusion is not exact although we don’t know the original Greek version of the text being referred to. For the second supposed allusion there is no mention of Jesus riding on a Libyan ass in Matthew so it’s not exact either. So I’m not seeing the alleged parody here which is supposed to exist. Maybe it’s more in the eye of the beholder.

The fact that Paul didn’t specifically reference either the Gospels of Matthew or Peter is no indication that these works didn’t exist. Note that BA didn’t reference the CRC “Rubber Book” in his post on organic compounds on Enceladus, but we would be amiss to take that as an indication that the “Rubber Book” doesn’t exist.

Thus the lack of a cite by Paul falls into the realm of speculation. What we need is something concrete. Like the date of the death of Gamaliel the Elder. Since you haven’t addressed that, I take it that you haven’t found hard confirmation, either, which is a shame. If Gamaliel the Elder died after Paul (and Paul is thought to have died during the reign of Nero), then we have the possibility that you are correct. If, however, Gamaliel died from 50-52 AD, then what we have is that Paul didn’t see fit to cite the Gospel of Matthew.

This falls into as much speculation as assuming a lack of cite = lack of existence, but it occurs to me that some in the early church claimed the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. If so, then Paul’s audience, who were mostly Gentiles, might not have been able to read it.

But this is all speculation. What we need it the date of the death of Gamaliel the Elder.

Oh, C’mon KC, now you’re stretching credulity. You don’t think that Paul would have mentioned the Gospel of Matthew in any of his letters if it had been in his possession? I find that farfetched. Instead, his 1st letter to the Corinthians would have went something like the following:

“Dear Brothers in Christ,

Along with this letter I am sending a copy of a most wonderful gospel called the Gospel of Matthew which has just come into my possession. It was written by an actual eyewitness to the many miracles performed by Our Lord and by a man who was one of Our Lord’s twelve chosen disciples. May it strengthen you in your faith, blah, blah, blah…”

The only rational conclusion is that such a document did not exist at the time Paul was preaching. Otherwise he would have snatched it up and made it the basis of his preaching and the basis of his epistles.

I don’t know if any of these URLs are worth a plug nickel but I’ve found the following:

http://www.spock.com/Gamaliel
“Gamaliel the Elder, or Rabbi Gamaliel I, was the grandson of the great Jewish teacher Hillel the Elder. He was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin in the mid first century. He died nine years before the destruction of Jerusalem (63 AD).”

http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/gama.htm
“The grace that Gamaliel showed to the Christians lasted among the Jews for some time after that, perhaps several years until the stoning of Stephen. In the meantime the Christians had multiplied rapidly in Jerusalem even winning over many of the priests. This moderation permitted the new Christians to organize into a church; the repression and persecution that followed scattered the church all over the world. A tradition has it that Gamaliel finally became a Christian and baptized by Peter but remained a member of the Sanhedrin. The Jews say he died a Pharisee about 62 AD. The Catholic Encyclopedia records that his body was discovered in the fifth century and is said to be preserved at Pisa, in Italy.”

So yes, there are some web sites placing the death of Gamaliel I about a decade after you do. A more important question would be how do we know for a fact that Gamaliel wrote the parody to begin with?

As to the dates, it’s critical. Yes, the article gave a date of AD 73. That would imply that Gamaliel the Elder died around that time. Yet, as I said, what I have indicates that he died sometime from AD 50 – AD 52. In all seriousness I ask if you have a reference which shows that Gamaliel died after AD 52, because if so, it would raise the upper limit of when the Gospel of Matthew was written. This isn’t a challenge; it’s a request for information, and if there’s evidence that Gamaliel the Elder lived to 73 AD, I’m open to changing my assessment.

Even the link you provided states:

“The parody, written by a rabbi known as Gamaliel, is believed by some well-respected liberal Christian scholars to have been written about A.D. 73 or earlier.”

But for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the parody of Gamaliel was indeed written sometime before 50 CE which means that the Gospel of Matthew was written even earlier, say 45 CE or so. This is smack dab in the middle of St. Paul’s missionary journeys. If this gospel was so well known to the Sanhedrin why is it that it seems to be completely unknown to Paul? None of the Pauline epistles make any mention of it or use any language from it. Please explain why not.