Conclusion
4
The Church’s Disputed Growth Rate in Acts (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 21:20)
Analogous periods of intensive growth attested for new religious movements render Luke’s reports of the church’s growth (Acts 2 : 41 ; 4 : 4 ; 21 : 20 ) more plausible than often assumed. Indeed, far from being absurd, Luke’s figures appear modest in comparison with significant growth rates in much of global Christianity and other mass movements today. This is not to deny that Luke may have preferred higher estimates where available, or to presume that careful statistics were kept. Nor do the arguments here prove Luke’s accuracy. Concrete information and analogies, however, challenge the usual arguments against Luke’s accuracy, so if we have other reasons to respect Luke’s sources of information, his figures remain plausible.
Luke’s Figures
Scholars have often expressed skepticism regarding Luke’s numerically quantified reports of the church’s growth (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 21:20). Nevertheless, periods of intensive growth attested for new religious movements throughout history and today render Luke’s reports more plausible than often assumed. Granted, Luke may have preferred higher estimates where available, and it is doubtful that the Jerusalem church kept careful statistics even in their heyday. Luke elsewhere employs hyperbole where it fits the bounds of normal historiographic rhetoric (cf. e.g., Luke 2:1). But the concrete arguments offered against the plenitude suggested in Luke’s estimates falter in light of other evidence.
Luke offers two estimates of the initial growth of the church (2:41; 4:4), comparable to his gospel tradition’s estimate of those present for a feeding (Luke 9:14). He provides a much higher estimate for the size of the church nearly three decades later, after persecution under Agrippa I has waned (21:20).
Luke has rhetorical incentive to provide such reports. Ancient writers might cite such dramatic conversion reports to indicate the success of their protagonist’s preaching; such reports are known, for example, about Pythagoras.³²¹ The inclusion of these reports (especially the first two cases) matches Luke’s style; after each evangelistic sermon in Acts, Luke also reports people’s acceptance or rejection (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 5:33; 7:54; 8:6, 36; 10:44; 13:44, 48–50; 17:32; 22:22; 28:24, 29).³²²
We cannot expect precision in such estimates. Unless the mass conversions and baptisms were more organized than the spontaneous “revival” meeting³²³ that Luke appears to envision for the day of Pentecost, it was probably difficult to make a precise count of the converts on that occasion. Nevertheless, as we shall note below, many settings exist today where the numbers of conversions recorded on a single occasion are far higher than those noted here, and movements often experience sudden growth spurts on particular occasions (not least the experiences that birth them).
In Acts 21:20, Luke reports the leaders of the Jerusalem church claiming ten thousands of Judean Christians. Luke elsewhere expresses his expectation of a significant Judean church in this period before Jerusalem’s fall (Luke 21:21; presumably addressed to disciples, in view of Luke 20:45; 21:7–8). For Luke, the Jerusalem church already had thousands in Acts 2:41 and 4:4 (cf. 5:14; 6:7; 9:31); although the number declined significantly for a period (8:1), Luke now has his apologetic opportunity to reemphasize the message’s success in Israel.³²⁴ Moreover, other Judean Christians would have increased the Jerusalem counts considerably.³²⁵ Some thus believe that Luke intends the number literally.³²⁶
Others argue that James or Luke use the figure hyperbolically simply to signify a very large number;³²⁷ the point is simply, “You see how strong the Jewish-Christian community is.”³²⁸ After all, even 10,000 is higher than some estimates for the total number of believers in Jesus in this period.³²⁹ Luke certainly does use hyperbole elsewhere, especially in his use of “all” (including in this verse, where “all” of them are zealous); Luke can use an unspecified “myriads” simply to designate a great number (Luke 12:1).³³⁰ Further, “tens of thousands” (and sometimes “thousands”) were employed in hyperbole, like our “millions” today (e.g., 1 Sam 18:8; 21:11; 29:5; Ps 3:6; 1 Cor 14:19).³³¹
While offhanded hyperbole is certainly possible and even likely in the passage (many myriads is dramatic, especially if Jerusalem alone is meant), the traditional reason for insisting on it is open to question. Munck, for instance, doubted the possibility of 50,000 believers (the minimum he believed qualified for “many myriads”), given an estimate of 25,000–30,000 residents in Jerusalem and half a million for all Judea.³³² But as we shall note in greater detail below, newer estimates of Jerusalem’s population suggest that it may have doubled from as many as 40,000 in Herod the Great’s time to perhaps 80,000 by the time of Agrippa II.³³³ Others put the figure much higher (over 100,000) and suggest that the count (which could then include Judean pilgrims from outside Jerusalem) would be even higher at Pentecost.³³⁴
Enough Water for three thousand Baptisms in 2:41?
Many scholars doubt that all three thousand converts that Luke reports could have been baptized in a single day.³³⁵ Barrett, for example, notes that “Mass baptisms would have been easy at a river . . . but there were no natural large-scale supplies of water in the city.”³³⁶ While one could wonder about the precision of Luke’s information source here, Barrett’s argument against it is ill-founded, as we shall see below in view of Jerusalem’s water resources. Luke’s “in that day” could be hyperbole, but in this case Luke probably knew the available resources of the Temple Mount better than do most of his modern critics. Scholars have often noted his accuracy with respect to aspects of the temple’s topography (e.g., Acts 21:32, 35, 40), not too surprising in the likely eyewitness “we” material.
Critics underestimate Jerusalem’s water resources. To accommodate the thousands of worshipers the temple hosted daily, the Temple Mount must have afforded plenty of pools for ritual immersions.³³⁷ Despite lack of complete excavations, it appears that some, apparently many, miqvaot on the temple mount were used before entering the temple area.³³⁸ A number of miqvaot appear in what may be a bath complex for ritual bathing south of the temple.³³⁹ Even the Roman historian Tacitus was familiar with the claim that the temple held many pools as well as cisterns for rainwater (Hist. 5.12). (When flowing water was unavailable, miqvaot normally depended on rainwater.³⁴⁰)
Nor should we suppose that such use would risk exhausting the water supply for miqvaot, even if (and this is not the case) many people’s use depleted the pools significantly more than disuse would have. Archaeologists have excavated thirty-four cisterns near the temple mount; “the capacity of some of these is as much as 8,000–12,000 cubic metres.”³⁴¹ If one includes pools³⁴² like Bethesda and Siloam (and subsequent tradition designates at least Siloam as useful for ritual immersion before Jerusalem’s fall),³⁴³ the amount of water available for baptism is among the least problems for the narrative’s plausibility. With a total of 150 known immersion pools in Jerusalem, the immersion of three thousand persons in the span of a few hours would not have been difficult.³⁴⁴
Likewise, against those who doubt that the one hundred twenty disciples of 1:15 could baptize three thousand people,³⁴⁵ these baptisms would not have been formal ceremonies analogous to modern baptisms (baptismal records, family gatherings, and so forth) or even individual ancient proselyte baptisms. “Baptizing” in this period involved mainly supervision while the people coming for purification immersed themselves; the disciples could, like John, supervise mass baptisms without individual attention (Luke 3:3, 7, 12, 16, 21). Even if only the apostles and a few of their colleagues, say a total of thirty, “performed” the baptisms in thirty miqvaot, they could have completed their task in a few hours. Indeed, even this view of matters probably assumes more organization than actually occurred in the excited atmosphere of mass conversions;³⁴⁶ once verbal instructions were issued, mass immersions in response to Peter’s command could have occurred with very little supervision at all.³⁴⁷
Inflating numbers in Antiquity
None of this is meant to deny that Luke or his sources could have preferred higher estimates if they lacked more specific ones. Because Luke lacks such estimates in his accounts of Paul’s diaspora ministry (even in the undoubtedly eyewitness “we” material), however, it is unlikely that Luke invents the numbers here, so any exaggeration probably would belong to his source.
It was common to exaggerate numbers, for instance, of enemies slain in battle (Xenophon Hiero 2.16; Livy 3.8.10); or one might exaggerate enemy numbers to mitigate the shame of one’s own defeat.³⁴⁸ Pliny the Younger, who otherwise emphasizes historians’ high standards for facts, jests that one correspondent boasts like historians of numbers too great to count (Pliny Ep. 9.16.1). Lucian complains that one particularly ridiculous historian so reduces Roman casualties, and so inflates those of the enemy, that no one will take him seriously (Hist. 20). Thus Dunn, commenting on Luke’s figures, remarks, “Numbers in ancient historians tended to be more impressionistic (or propagandistic) rather than to provide what we today would regard as an accurate accounting.”³⁴⁹
Some ancient figures would be more concrete (like estimates based on the number of men lost if a Roman legion were destroyed); but many were estimates. On the whole, historians were not careless, but even the best of them often had only approximations.³⁵⁰ Sometimes numbers that historians cited did not fit other known data, in which case later historians might critique them (Polybius 12.17.1—12.22.7) or prefer to blame the scribe rather than the historian (12.4.4–6).³⁵¹ Thucydides also complains that he could not provide the numbers for one battle because one side would not reveal them and the other side clearly exaggerated their numbers (Thucydides 5.68.2).³⁵²
At the same time, strikingly large numbers do appear frequently in documented historical times;³⁵³ in the most costly war of which Polybius knew (1.63.4, 8), the Romans lost about seven hundred quinqueremes and the Carthaginians about five hundred (1.63.6). Similarly dramatically, Polybius estimates that about 70,000 Romans died in the battle at Cannae (3.117.4). Lest anyone question his accuracy, Polybius emphasizes that he is not (like some historians) merely interested in numbers that are “plausible”; he discovered an actual list on a bronze tablet where Hannibal made a list (Polybius 3.33.17–18). We may choose to think that Polybius invented the tablet list or, more probably, that his Carthaginian source did. But given the stakes involved in the war, these numbers likely bear some semblance to what took place. Similarly, even in the process of Lucian’s denouncing one historian’s overestimates, noted above, Lucian inadvertently attests that firsthand records were available. This historian contradicts the officers’ reports, which Lucian apparently knows (Hist. 20), though of course even firsthand reports are often estimates.
Josephus’s estimates are routinely inflated;³⁵⁴ where we can test him most clearly, he can inflate numbers in the biblical text.³⁵⁵ He estimates that over one million in Jerusalem died during the war (War 6.420), though he concedes that most were Jews from elsewhere trapped inside (War 6.421). Although he attributes the information to a census of the high priests in the time of Nero, few take literally his claim that 2,700,000 people showed up for Passovers (War 6.423–425); increasing the numbers was to Josephus’s advantage.³⁵⁶ Some, however, adjust the figures too far in the opposite direction; Josephus is at least internally consistent.³⁵⁷ Pliny, after all, calls Jerusalem the east’s “most illustrious city.”³⁵⁸ Where we can compare their estimates on some concrete points, however, Josephus’s estimates appear higher than Luke’s (see e.g., War 2.261 vs. Acts 21:38).³⁵⁹
Jerusalem’s population estimates
While estimation and even exaggeration would not therefore have removed Luke from the company of ancient historians, not all estimates were bad estimates. The specific reasons for which scholars accuse Luke of inflating the numbers are not compelling.
Most scholars reject Luke’s figures because the scholars depend on Jeremias’s now outdated estimates for Jerusalem’s population (25,000–30,000) instead of newer estimates that range much higher.³⁶⁰ Jerusalem had expanded beyond its walls in this period,³⁶¹ but Jeremias’s biggest mistake was his underestimation of population density,³⁶² which was much greater than the early-nineteenth-century Palestinian settlements on which Jeremias based his estimate.³⁶³ Magen Broshi has noted that Roman Jerusalem enclosed some four hundred fifty acres, and estimates about 80,000 inhabitants.³⁶⁴ More recent density and area estimates also usually suggest 80,000 or higher.³⁶⁵ Herod so increased the city’s water supply that the city could have doubled its population³⁶⁶ and supported at least 70,000 (though some think that the temple complex consumed so much water that the population remained around 40,000).³⁶⁷
At feast times like Pentecost, Jerusalem might swell to as many as half a million people, with an estimated 30,000 from the Diaspora.³⁶⁸ The Temple Mount was large enough to hold tens of thousands at one time; estimates run as high as 200,000³⁶⁹ or 400,000.³⁷⁰ Modern western interpreters, underestimating population density, tend to dismiss high numbers,³⁷¹ but checks exist on our skepticism today. For example, the Sacred Mosque at Mecca, which is 180,000 square meters (i.e., just 36,000 square meters more than Jerusalem’s Temple Mount), holds 500,000 in prayer.³⁷² Mecca hosted only about 108,000 pilgrims annually before the First World War, but due to modern transportation now hosts over two million. Nevertheless, Mecca is smaller and less accessible than Jerusalem was.³⁷³
As we have suggested, the estimate later, in Acts 21:20, likely refers not only to Jerusalem proper, but to Judean believers in Jesus. Luke speaks of “Judeans” here, so there is no reason to limit the number to Jerusalem proper. Counting all Judeans would swell much further the total population from which the estimate of Christians at that time would be taken.
Are Rapid Growth Rates Feasible?
Given such estimates, thousands of hearers and a rapid mass movement of three thousand conversions need not be deemed implausible. Modern western readers often find Luke’s portrait of a dramatic multiplication of the church (especially to tens of thousands in 21:20) implausible because it violates our usual experience today,³⁷⁴ but it stands well within the experience of global renewal movements. While movements can start small, the history and sociology of movements demonstrate that some can also multiply at a tremendous rate after a major revival experience like the one suggested in this chapter.³⁷⁵
Rodney Stark understandably insists that sociology supports gradual growth rather than mass conversions,³⁷⁶ but applying that approach uniformly to all periods of early Christianity does not take into account rapid people movements often noted in current missiological literature. Richard Pervo cites Stark’s estimate against Luke’s accuracy here.³⁷⁷ Addressing a later period, Ramsay MacMullen argues for a much lower proportion of Christians in the Empire (especially actual church-attending ones) than usually thought,³⁷⁸ but his estimates reflect archaeological remains (which are always incomplete), more space between worshipers than I would extrapolate from my observations of typical Majority World churches today, and, what really matters for our considerations, the conditions of c. 400 CE.³⁷⁹
Movements often begin rapidly and then slow (or sometimes decline) in their growth rate. One might compare, for example, the dramatic rise of both Islam and Christianity in twentieth-century Africa, or the sudden (albeit not total) resurgence of both Islam and Orthodox Christianity in Central Asia after the decline of Soviet policies promoting atheism, or, for that matter, the rapid decline of religious belief and practice in much of the twentieth-century West.
One can further offer various examples of rapid early growth, many in cases where explicit records do exist. Thus for example early US Methodists (who kept records) grew by roughly a thousand times in four decades. Under the leadership of Francis Asbury, they grew from three hundred in 1771 (when Asbury arrived) to 300,000 forty years later.³⁸⁰ This growth was exponential, possible if the growth rate is sustained over time; thus, in 1780, they had 8,500 members; by 1790, just ten years later, they had more than 50,000.³⁸¹ Rates of growth fluctuated, rising during times of revival, with the largest numerical influx toward the end of this period. Less dramatically yet noteworthy, Methodism in England grew from 22,000 in 1767 to 96,000 by 1800 to 518,000 (more than twenty times over in about eighty years).³⁸²
Similarly, one Holiness denomination grew three hundred percent in five years after what it viewed as its “pentecost” experience;³⁸³ earlier, Jesuits multiplied five hundred times in their first sixteen years.³⁸⁴ In Korea, northern Methodists grew 118 percent in one year (and Presbyterians 34 percent) during the Korean revival of 1907;³⁸⁵ more recently, one Korean church grew from five to 720,000 members in 40 years (i.e., it multiplied by 144,000).³⁸⁶ Indonesia’s Nias church grew from five hundred to 135,000 (i.e., 270 times the original number) in forty years; other Indonesian Christian groups multiplied in the 1960s, with the Timor church baptizing 200,000 in two years.³⁸⁷ In South Africa, African Indigenous Churches grew from 32 groups in 1913 to over 3500, accounting for over 27 percent of the black population, 71 years later.³⁸⁸ One recent revival movement in India grew 3000 percent in a two-year period.³⁸⁹
Although absorbing elements of some earlier movements (including many Holiness groups), Pentecostalism (with charismatics) grew by perhaps half a billion in one century. As a movement that values the revival exemplified by the church’s first Pentecost, growth is a dominant value there. Some church historians have described Pentecostal/charismatic Christianity as “the fastest-growing form of Christianity ever.”³⁹⁰ Estimates of global figures for these charismatic and Pentecostal Christians vary by definition but are in the hundreds of millions:
•Defining “charismatic” broadly, David Barrett originally estimated over 600 million by 2000, or nearly 30 percent of world Christianity,³⁹¹ though, due to fluctuation in the growth rate, he had to revise his estimate downward closer to 2,000 (roughly 524 million);³⁹²
•Yale scholar Lamin Sanneh estimated almost 590 million for 2005 (and projected nearly 800 million by 2025);³⁹³
•In 1994 Harvard scholar Harvey Cox already accepted a then-current estimate of 410 million,³⁹⁴ and a few years later suggested that “Pentecostals” could “equal Catholics in number by” 2030;³⁹⁵
•Although the wider definition of these labels would surprise some believers so classified, according to high estimates, as of the year 2000 there were 126 million Pentecostal/charismatic Christians in Africa, 134.9 million in Asia and 141.4 million in Latin America (with 79.6 million in North America), whereas there were almost none a century earlier;³⁹⁶
•The newest figures estimate some 614 million Pentecostals, charismatics and neocharismatics for 2010 (out of roughly two billion church members, or 1.5 billion church attenders, in the world), with an estimate of nearly 800 million for 2025.³⁹⁷ These estimates make the charismatic branch of Christendom second in size only to Roman Catholicism (with which it overlaps).³⁹⁸
Virtually all of this growth has occurred in roughly one century, from the movement’s apparently inauspicious beginnings to nearly 10 percent of the global population. Even if these estimates are wildly exaggerated (and I suspect that they may need to be nuanced), the empirical information behind them reflects phenomenal growth. Even if we force these estimates considerably downward, they easily exceed the rate of growth envisioned in the church’s first few decades in Acts.
Another shift in one century, probably even better documented, has been no less dramatic, although not unrelated to this Pentecostal shift. Whereas fewer than 18 percent of Christians in 1900 lived outside Europe and North America, today over 60 percent do, and an estimated 70 percent will by 2025.³⁹⁹ As the center of world Christianity has shifted to the global South, the dominant Christian perspectives in the world have shifted with it.⁴⁰⁰
Although far from the only groups involved in this shift, charismatic and Pentecostal forms of Christianity have been in the forefront of the recent expansion of Christianity, reportedly growing six times over in the three decades from 1970 to 2000.⁴⁰¹ All these figures should provide some perspective to models that emphasize exclusively slow but steady church growth between Pentecost and Constantine, especially with respect to the movement’s beginning. Far from being absurd, Luke’s figures are modest in comparison with significant growth rates in much of global Christianity and other mass movements today.
Growth Spurts and People Movements
We have examined patterns of rapid expansion over the course of decades, but faster growth (such as appears in Luke’s conversion summaries of 2:41 and 4:4) is also attested. On the first day of an unexpected revival movement in Suriname, in November 1994, perhaps eight hundred residents of Nieuw Nickerie, Suriname, were converted—reportedly more than ten times the number of local conversions from non-Christian backgrounds over the previous century. More dramatically than in Jerusalem, these conversions involved an open change of religious affiliation, challenging centuries of inherited tradition. One dramatic and unsolicited healing of an elderly nonbeliever late on that first day impacted subsequent growth among his people group. This initial explosion of growth quickly led to a mass people movement (from less than 1 percent of the population) that over the following decade converted perhaps 35 percent of the population.⁴⁰² That Luke should emphasize both immediate conversions (2:41) and continuing conversions (2:47) fits the sociological pattern reflected in this modern account.
Larger mass conversions occur in various biblically saturated parts of the world today, often with less clear incidents to prompt them than what Luke reports in this narrative. For example, although the retention rate is not documented, one Nigerian campaign of the German Pentecostal evangelist Reinhard Bonnke claimed one million “decisions for Christ” on the first night (November 2000).⁴⁰³ Even allowing for significant exaggeration or misunderstanding, the numbers dwarf any figures in early Christianity. Admittedly these Nigerian conversion reports occurred in a culture already familiar with Christianity (and with greater media access); but the Jerusalem church also worked in a familiar environment of Jewish piety that it claimed to epitomize.
It is also relevant to point out that rapid people movements (such as appear in Acts 9:35) are well-attested in Christian history and today.⁴⁰⁴ As examples, one may cite cases from Myanmar,⁴⁰⁵ India,⁴⁰⁶ and Indonesia.⁴⁰⁷ They appear in non-Christian movements as well.⁴⁰⁸
The Real Historical Problem
It seems to me that the real problem with Luke’s large numbers for Christians is an argument from silence, in this case Josephus’s silence.⁴⁰⁹ Some arguments from silence are weightier than others, and this appears to me weightier than many others. One would expect Josephus to mention a movement of this magnitude, and his silence therefore calls for comment. Josephus is the one non-Christian source we might expect to mention such matters; instead he divides his nation into three sects (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes; sometimes he further adds Zealots), none of which have even 10,000 members (even though Josephus is prone to amplify figures!)⁴¹⁰
Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that the Jewish Jesus movement provided mass martyrs in Neronian Rome in the mid-sixties (Tacitus Ann. 15.44), yet (against Luke) proved completely marginal numerically in Judea and Galilee. There can be no doubt that churches existed in Judea (1 Thess 2:14; Gal 1:17–19, 22; Rom 15:25–26, 31), yet Josephus is silent about their existence altogether. There thus seems something more suspicious about Josephus’s silence than about Luke’s claim of many Christians. Moreover, even what Josephus is not silent about appears suspicious. There can hardly have been only three sects,⁴¹¹ their total numbers constituting less than 0.5 percent of the Judean and Galilean population,⁴¹² or of Josephus’s figures for Jerusalem’s Passover.⁴¹³
That is, Josephus’s “sects” do not account for the religious practice of most Judeans (who belonged to no sects or to movements that Josephus regards as less relevant, important, or useful to emphasize). Perhaps Josephus found less reason to emphasize the apolitical Nazarenes, who had far less appeal to the elite than Sadducees or Pharisees and far less malleability for philosophic comparisons than the Essenes. (By comparison, the earliest Christian documents are completely silent about the Essenes.) Further, the Christian movement was known in Rome, hence could neither be idealized like Pharisees and Essenes, nor made relevant to the war like Zealots.
Further, conflicts over the Christian movement in Rome in the time of Claudius,⁴¹⁴ plus their outright persecution in Rome under Nero,⁴¹⁵ may have made them a liability to a Jewish apologist.⁴¹⁶ Unlike the strictly Judean sects, the Christian movement was gathering strength throughout the Empire. As one earlier writer suggests, it was difficult for Josephus to address the Christian movement “shorn of its Messianic element,” so Josephus avoided the topic to avoid further incriminating Judaism with an unnecessarily “compromising connexion with a movement which was already hateful in the eyes of the ruling classes . . . ”⁴¹⁷ Some argue that Josephus toned down David’s revolutionary activity and ancestry for the Messiah out of concern for the same Roman audience.⁴¹⁸ Although Josephus admits Judas the Galilean’s pursuit of kingship in Ant. 17.271–72, he tones down this picture to what could be construed as mere banditry in War 2.56.⁴¹⁹
Josephus does mention Jesus’s brother James and almost certainly mentions Jesus himself.⁴²⁰ His silence about Jesus’s followers (except the possibly authentic “tribe of Christians” in Ant. 18.64; this is not typical Christian language) cannot be explained by ignorance, since he would have to know the significance attached to Jesus’s followers in the Diaspora (especially the events in Rome just noted).⁴²¹ He portrays neither Jesus nor John as a revolutionary, in contrast to many popular leaders of whom he writes. However we explain Josephus’s silence, he paid less attention to the Jesus movement than we would expect, whatever their numbers were.
Of course, either Luke or the Jerusalem church’s elders (Acts 21:20) would also have reason to inflate the Nazarenes’ statistics as much as the other groups had reason to inflate theirs (and perhaps more so, because their strength lay particularly in their populist support). But we do not need to suppose that exaggerations changed orders of magnitude, and (the point here) we cannot argue against their estimates based on Josephus’s silence.
Historically, Luke’s view of the Jerusalem church is probably fairly accurate—certainly praising the Jerusalem church (mixed with suspicion of Paul) is not a later Greek Christian construct! Luke is clearly partial to Paul, but James, whom he (or his source) would have met at least on this occasion (21:18), obviously made a favorable impression on him, and he seems to trust James’s motives even while writing in retrospect.⁴²²
Given the likelihood that Luke was Paul’s traveling companion (or at least depended on one), his positive view toward the Jerusalem church is telling; whereas tensions existed (as Luke himself recognizes, especially in 21:21), the old Tübingen extrapolations of such tensions from later sources is excessive. Luke probably praised the Jerusalem church because he found something worthy of praise, just as he also seems concerned about some problems there (as again in 21:21).
Conclusion
Such observations do not constitute proof that Luke’s reports are accurate, but they do challenge the grounds by which many commentators tend to dismiss them. Of course, it is unlikely in the revival atmosphere described in Acts 2 that the apostles and their colleagues made an exact count of baptisms; numbers rounded to the thousands belong to the sphere of estimates, and Luke’s sources are more likely to have estimated high than low. But if we accept the description in the narrative that follows Luke’s first estimate (2:42–47), the earliest Christians seem to have had some sense of their enormous numbers, suggesting that the estimate is not only realistic but in the general range. The subsequent growth of the church (indicated in 21:20) is consistent with statistics from some revival settings today.
If these figures are anywhere close to realistic, they suggest an extraordinary explosion in the earliest church’s membership. To offer a sense of proportion, Josephus, never known to play down numbers, numbers the Essenes at “over four thousand” (Ant. 18.20). Three thousand converts in one day, and eventually tens of thousands of adherents, suggests a remarkable movement within first-century Judean Judaism. Because the vast majority of these adherents did not belong to the elite, some of their other contemporaries could afford to ignore them. Perhaps they warrant more attention from us today.